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Demonstrates that complaints by office staff about their physical environment are not necessarily caused by physical deficiencies. Trying to reduce the level of complaints by adjusting heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems can therefore be an unrewarding task. Greater attention needs to be placed on - communications between management, those responsible for running HVAC systems and staff. Staff need the feeling that they can influence, if not control, their environment. Staff should also have more realistic expectations about their thermal comfort.

Random samples of the workforces of an air conditioned and naturally ventilated building were interviewed using a doctor administered questionnaire. Large and statistically significant excesses of work-related nasal symptoms, irritation of the eyes, dry throat, headache, dry skin andlethargy were detected in the air conditioned building compared to the naturally ventilated building. In the air conditioned building, over 36% of those interviewed were suffering from a single symptom and few workers were symptom free.

The employees in a large office in Trondheim were complaining about headache, tiredness, sickness, allergic reactions in eye and nose, dry skin, respiratory diseases etc., and as usual they believed that their inconvenience was due tothe ventilating system. However, preliminary investigations did not verify this assumption, although it was evident that the heating and ventilating system was part of the problems. Measures included reduction of room temperature, antistatic treatment of carpets, and replacement of noisy ceiling diffusers.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the U.S. Army, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (USA-CERL) have collaborated on a project that examines the influence of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system operational parameters on the levels of microorganisms found in a simulated office space. In these experiments, fungi were collected as representative microorganisms using side-by-side sieve and slit samplers. Experiments at USA-CERL demonstrated that fan coil units are a major source of fungal aerosols in the built environment.

During the past few years it has become apparent that office environment problems have reached epidemic proportions. The Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Community Medicine in 1963 was empowered by the State Legisl

Results are given of the effect of ventilation rate, duct length and particle concentration on ion concentration under laboratory conditions. The effect of electrostatic fields is discussed.

Due to better insulation and improved airtightness of doors and windows, the supply of fresh air entering a room has been greatly reduced. This in turn causes an increase in the amount of pollutants emitted by different insulation and building materials. Measurements of the formaldehyde concentration in newbuildings have shown that the admissible limits are still exceeded even after a year. Stricter regulations limiting the emissions of pollutants are therefore urgently necessary.

Volatile organic chemicals in indoor air of a home-for-the-elderly and a new local government office building were identified and quantified using Texax GCR samplers and capillary gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis. Over three hundred chemicals were tentatively identified in indoor air of thehome-for-the-elderly. Comparison of night-day levels were made. The new office building was also part of a longitudinal study which revealed a rapid decrease in levels with time for some chemicals (after completion) while others increased.

It is only recently that indoor air pollution has begun to attract the attention it deserves in Canadian Governmental and Building code circles. Two main events have been catalytic towards this increased emphasis. First, the ban on the use of ur

In response to employee complaints of upper respiratory and eye irritation, formaldehyde air sampling studies were conducted in two different office environments. The first was in a series of temporary modular buildings with construction simi