Why and when is ventilation needed?
We ventilate our buildings to provide a healthy indoor environment. And we ventilate countinously and always.
From a historical perspective to today
Throughout history, humans always looked for better living conditions and healthier air.
Humans and animals have evolved solutions to either adapt to their existing environments or made changes to improve them. So the main focus has been always on keeping heat in buildings, however with a good indoor air quality.
Today is no different, we need to ventilate our buildings to provide a healthy indoor environment.
Are you interested in knowing more about the history of ventilation?
Buildings, like humans, need to breathe
Why do buildings need to breathe?
People need to breathe fresh air. This happens naturally outside where fresh air is naturally found. However, people work and live inside buildings, some say we even spend around 90% of our time indoors.
So it is important that we feel good indoors.
Why ventilate?
- To create air movement which improves the comfort of occupants
- To remove 'stale' air and replace it with 'fresh' air
- To moderate internal temperatures
- To reduce the accumulation of humidity
- To manage odours, other gases and various pollutants that build up during occupied periods
The importance of good ventilation
Without a ventilation system in place, you have no control of the air flow in a building.
Proper ventilation protects a home from unwanted toxins, pollutants, and odours. Ventilation can also help protect the overall structure of a building by eliminating excess moisture from the air and to prevent overheating by venting the excess heat and also for cooling the indoor environment if the outside is too hot.
We ventilate for comfort (for Indoor Environmental Quality, not Indoor Air Quality). Buildings occupants — we as humans — are actually the best “sensors” in a building, because we can also take actions to change the situation indoors.
Ventilation can do more than help prevent building occupants from getting sick; it can provide an improved indoor environment.Anonymous