Is Your Building Making You Sick?

Do you get headaches, mysterious rashes, constant allergy symptoms? You may have a sick building! Now you may ask what is sick building syndrome?

Sick building syndrome

This is a medical condition where people in your building suffer from symptoms of illness or feel unwell for no apparent reason. The symptoms tend to increase with severity over time as people spend more time in your building. These symptoms disappear when they leave your building, but reappear when they spend any amount of time in the building. The symptoms range from:

• headache
• eye irritation
• nose irritation
• throat irritation
• fatigue
• dizziness
• fatigue

Most of these symptoms are related to poor indoor air quality. These can become chronic conditions if not dealt with properly. Work productivity will decrease, sick time will increase and overall moral in the work place will suffer along with profitability.

What can you do about it?

Conventional cleaning agents can contain chemicals that irritate the lungs and skin in the office. After cleaning your office these chemicals can linger in the air and on the surface which comes in contact with skin. Such chemicals that are harmful are ammonia, hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide and petroleum solvents. These all have harsh chemical smells that affect your workers and customers.

You can choose to use green cleaning products certified by a third party organization like green seal, ecologo, safhttps://www.epa.gov/saferchoiceer choice and greenguard. These companies work to make cleaning agents safer for your office space.

Clean Your HVAC

Good air circulation helps to keep the indoor air quality in your office the best it can be. Your HVAC should be regularly maintained and cleaned. Dust buildup and other debris will circulate throughout the building spreading germs, dust and other pollutants. This leads to poor indoor air quality and upper respiratory issues with employees and customers. The American Society of Heating and Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers recommends and airflow of five cubic feet per minute, per person in any office. Make sure that A/C filter, heating system filters are replaced regularly.

Choose materials carefully

When you are choosing materials for your office, make sure you are choosing flooring, wood products, paints and adhesives that have a low VOC. VOC’s are volatile organic compounds. By choosing ones that have a low VOC, they reduce the amount of indoor air pollutants. This will improve the overall heath of your building, employees and customers.