IAQ Compliance Auditing
Indoor air quality hazard compliance auditing is a critical component of effective Facility Management.
Employers, building owners and managers have a Duty of Care to understand the hazards within workplaces and provide a healthy and safe working environment for all staff, contractors and visitors.
A substance can only cause health affects if it comes in to contact with the human body through one or more of the four recognised pathways – inhalation, ingestion, absorption and / or injection. Of these four exposure routes inhalation of a substance is the most common way for a pollutant to enter the human body.
As most Australian office employees spend more than 80% of their time indoors the quality of indoor air is extremely important to assuring their health and the assessment of the indoor air quality within both workshop and office a workplaces should form part of any business hazards assessment program.
A large range of chemical, biological and physical factors can affect the air quality of the indoor environment and as such a range of testing is required to quantify hazards including:
• Physical parameters – temperature, relative humidity, air movement
• Chemical parameters – carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, formaldehyde, total volatile organic compounds and radon.
• Particulate parameters – respirable dust (PM10), ultra-fine dust (PM2.5), synthetic mineral fibre, asbestos fibre
• Biological parameters – mould fungi, bacteria
Indoor air quality auditing of a building includes:
• Completion of systematic walk through inspection
• Completion of IAQ monitoring and sample collection
• Collection of water samples from cooling tower systems analysed for microbial contamination (if applicable).
• Inspection of the air-conditioning systems for the presence of contaminant accumulation (dust, asbestos, synthetic mineral fibre and biological hazards)