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Posts Tagged ‘health’
Monday, June 28th, 2010
Have you ever asked your kids what they learned in school that day? Somehow, their initial answer tends to be, “Nothing.” Often, a little prying reveals that they did, in fact, learn something new. Perhaps they learned how to solve a difficult arithmetic problem, expanded their vocabulary or found out more about their country’s history. The truth is, children are curious and often eager to learn. Why let poor classroom air quality put a damper on their day?
Poor air quality in classrooms negatively affects academic performance and health – putting both student and teacher at risk. For many school districts, student absences lead to decreased government funding, while teacher absences lead to higher expenses. That’s pretty ironic if you ask us. We conducted a study of a typical classroom in Germany and found that the level of harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the classroom air exceeded healthy threshold limits within minutes after students arrived at 8:00 a.m. and exceeded those limits for the majority of the school day. Occupied classrooms are especially prone to high concentrations of bio-effluents (VOCs from human respiration, transpiration and metabolism). If left unchecked, VOCs can result in a variety of physical symptoms – eye irritation, headache, drowsiness or dizziness. Even though an increase in ventilation of just one-cubic-foot per minute can decrease absentee rates by up to two percent, very few classrooms have indoor air quality (IAQ) monitors. By signaling HVAC systems only when needed, the energy-efficient IAQ sensor helps maintain clean, healthy air so students can learn and teachers can teach.
Tags: children, classroom, health, iAQ, productivity, Safety, VOCs
Posted in Health and Safety, Monitoring Indoor Air Quality, Reducing Facility Maintenance Costs, Schools, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Are you planning to visit Nuremburg, Germany for Sensor + Test 2010 in May? As it’s the leading forum for sensors, measuring and testing technologies worldwide, we’ll be there with new products. Be sure to stop by Stand 331 in Hall 12 where we’re unveiling our new Air Monitor and displaying our iAQ-2000 professional HVAC Air Quality Sensor. So sign up for your free ticket. Until then, here are a few product highlights to pique your interest.
The Indoor Air Monitor:
- Size of a computer memory stick
- Said to be world’s smallest IAQ sensor
- Plugs into USB port
- LED display glows green, yellow or red for good, fair or poor air quality, respectively
- Available for private labeling and distribution
- Now shipping to qualified distributors for retail sale to end users
- Includes one -year warranty
iAQ-2000:
- Sensitive, low-cost solution for detecting poor air quality
- Uses micro-machined metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) technology to detect VOCs
- Highly sensitive and fast responding
- Low power consumption
- Small size for convenient installation
If you can’t make it to Germany, don’t worry – we’ll be blogging from the show to bring you highlights and trends.
Free tickets for Sensor + Test 2010 are available at:
German: http://www.sensor‐test.de/service/sensorticket.php?Fid=50667
English: http://www.sensor‐test.de/service/sensorticket.php?Fid=50667&Spr=en
Tags: health, iAQ, VOCs
Posted in Improving Energy Efficiency, Monitoring Indoor Air Quality, Reducing Facility Maintenance Costs, Upcoming Trade Shows | No Comments »
Friday, March 12th, 2010
Indoor air quality (IAQ) isn’t really a popular topic of discussion around most dinner tables. In fact, we’re pretty sure that many people still don’t realize the impact that IAQ has on health, productivity, education and more. Perhaps if people knew more about it and the impact it may have on their families and friends, they could join the discussion about how to breathe cleaner, healthier air. People spend 90 percent of their time inside – homes, offices, schools, planes, trains and automobiles – but the damaging effects of bad air can be life-threatening. What can you do if you suspect your office has poor indoor air quality? How does poor air quality affect your child at school? What if you live in an apartment? What causes indoor air problems in the first place? Chances are you have a few questions about how IAQ is affecting you personally. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), thoughtful people that they are, has a regularly updated page on their website called The Inside Story: A Guide to Indoor Air Quality. It’s chock-full of useful information that can help you answer any IAQ questions you have. Here’s a highlight from the e-booklet about indoor air and your health:
“Health effects from indoor air pollutants may be experienced soon after exposure or, possibly, years later. Immediate effects may show up after a single exposure or repeated exposures. These include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, headaches, dizziness, and fatigue. Such immediate effects are usually short-term and treatable. Sometimes the treatment is simply eliminating the person’s exposure to the source of the pollution, if it can be identified. Symptoms of some diseases, including asthma, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and humidifier fever, may also show up soon after exposure to some indoor air pollutants….Other health effects may show up either years after exposure has occurred or only after long or repeated periods of exposure. These effects, which include some respiratory diseases, heart disease, and cancer, can be severely debilitating or fatal. It is prudent to try to improve the indoor air quality in your home even if symptoms are not noticeable….”
Too tired to look through the content? Ask us an IAQ-related question, and we’ll research it for you.
Tags: EPA, health, iAQ, productivity
Posted in Monitoring Indoor Air Quality | No Comments »
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
We recently came across some pretty useful information on the Flagler Organics blog. Their “Cost of an Unheathy Office” post states that:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that: – medical care for major illnesses resulting from indoor air pollution cost more than $1 billion annually – lost productivity from those illnesses cost between $4.7 and $5.4 billion each year – lost productivity and increased sick leave time as a result of indoor-air-quality-related illnesses costs as high as $60 billion per year
We also found the same (uncited) information here and here. After scouring the EPA website, calling around and Googling away, we still can’t find the exact source of these EPA stats. Could you please help us out by letting us know if you’ve found the source?
Thanks in advance!
Tags: EPA, health, iAQ, productivity
Posted in Lend a Hand, Monitoring Indoor Air Quality, Reducing Facility Maintenance Costs | 1 Comment »
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