WHAT IS IT ?

page 1- book excerpt -

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ranks indoor air pollution among the top four environmental risks in America. People spend about 90% of their lives indoors, and pollution is consistently 2 to 5 times higher indoors than outdoors. The indoor pollutant levels have been reported as high as 100 times the levels encountered outside.

Since the worldwide energy crisis in 1973, advances in energy efficient building construction have not been without a downside. In an effort to conserve fuel in commercial and residential buildings, builders started constructing airtight buildings, inoperable-airtight windows, and reduced air exchange rates.

By 1986, the news media began to sensationalize the condition as sick building syndrome. Sick building syndrome infers a condition in which the occupants of a building experience acute health and comfort problems that seem to be linked to a building but whose cause is unknown.

Indoor air quality investigative methods have only recently become technologically sophisticated in regards to investigative approaches and analytical procedures. Initially, formaldehyde off-gassing from furnishings in office buildings and off-gassing from particleboard in mobile homes was targetted as the culprit. One article, published in 1987, refers to formaldehyde as a deadly sin. Others declared: "It could be your office that is sick", "Tight homes, bad air" and "The enemy within". All referenced formaldehyde. With the passage of time, other substances were implicated (eg. carbon monoxide, tobacco smoke, and organics), but all the environmental professionals knew was that health complaints could generally be alleviated with greater air exchange rates. Thus the poor air exchange in buildings has been implicated as the cause of many of the complaints for which there was no known source.

continue>>