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Introduction to Indoor Air Quality in Commercial and Institutional Buildings

Clint McCann, P.E.


Course Outline

This two hour online course discusses basic information about indoor air quality (IAQ) concerns in commercial and institutional buildings.  It briefly discusses building design, operations, and maintenance considerations for ensuring healthy indoor air in these public spaces.  The course also presents information regarding preventive maintenance activities to reduce the introduction of common indoor air pollutants and makes recommendations for what to do when IAQ concerns emerge.  While detailed information regarding indoor air quality diagnostics and the design and execution of remediation strategies are beyond the scope of this course, students will be introduced to the types of professional assistance that are available to assist with remediation.

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, students will have been introduced to:

Intended Audience

This course is useful for building owners, facility managers, plant engineers, maintenance professionals, renovation contractors, and building occupants.  The course is relevant to all commercial and institutional buildings where indoor air quality is of concern.

Benefit for Attendee

In this course, students will review the OSHA booklet 3430-04 2011entitled “Indoor Air Quality in Commercial and Institutional Buildings”, published by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration—U.S. Department of Labor.  This publication introduces basic information about building indoor air quality concerns and provides students with practical guidelines for preventing or minimizing IAQ problems and for achieving quick resolution of problems when they do arise.

Course Introduction

Indoor air quality (IAQ) has become a major concern for owners, operators, and occupants of businesses, schools, and other buildings used for public purposes.  Poor air quality in these buildings has not only been linked to complaints of discomfort and productivity losses of building occupants, but can also lead to sickness and disease if not corrected.  The Environmental Protection Agency has identified IAQ as one of the top five most urgent environmental risks to public health for the majority of Americans who are estimated to spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors.  Statistics such as these make it incumbent upon those who design, construct, maintain, and operate public buildings to ensure that construction materials, building envelopes, and HVAC systems are designed to provide the best possible indoor air quality and then maintained in a way that ensures optimal performance.

Course Content

The course content is in the PDF document:

OSHA-AIQ (3430-04 2011)

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

Course Summary

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that the majority of Americans spend approximately 90 percent of their time in an indoor environment.  Activities in these areas include working, studying, eating, drinking, sleeping, and exercising—all in enclosed spaces that rely on HVAC systems to provide fresh “make-up” air to maintain acceptable air quality.  When these systems fail to adequately provide acceptable indoor air quality levels, building occupants are susceptible to productivity declines and loss of enjoyment in their environment at best, and illness or disease at worst.  This course provides students with a basic introduction to indoor air quality, what it means to building occupants, how to ensure building systems are able to supply the necessary quality of indoor air, and sources of further information and assistance.

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

Take a Quiz

DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.