Ensuring good indoor air quality (IAQ) means everyone breathes a little easier: occupants who experience improved health, comfort and productivity, and owners who see increased building value and reduced risk.

New guidance for achieving enhanced IAQ is available from five leading building industry associations and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The book and CD provide strategies needed to achieve good IAQ using proven technologies and without significantly increasing costs.

“The health and comfort of buildings occupants is too important to leave IAQ as an
after‐thought in design, construction and operation,” said Andrew Persily, Ph.D., chair of the
committee that wrote the new guidance. “There is plenty of experience out there to help avoid
IAQ problems in buildings, allowing all of us to breathe a little easier.

The Indoor Air Quality Guide: Best Practices for Design, Construction and Commissioning
is a collaboration between ASHRAE, the American Institute of Architects, the Building Owners
and Managers Association International, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Sheet
Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors of North America and the U.S. Green Building Council.

The book describes 40 strategies for achieving critical IAQ objectives related to moisture
management, ventilation, filtration and air cleaning and source control. It also highlights how
design and construction teams can work together to ensure good IAQ strategies are
incorporated from initial design through project completion.

Here a few tips from the guide on improving IAQ in buildings:

• Bring IAQ into the very earliest design discussions. Don't get stuck retrofitting the design
for IAQ at the end of the process.

• Strictly limit liquid water penetration and condensation in the envelope, and control
indoor humidity.

• Where outdoor air quality is poor, use enhanced filtration and air cleaning to provide
high quality ventilation air. Locate outdoor air intakes away from contaminant sources
and provide the means to measure and control minimum outdoor airflows.

• Select building materials and furnishings that have low contaminant emissions and don't
require use of high-emitting cleaning products.

• Exhaust contaminants from indoor activities as close to their source as possible.

• Recognize that O&M is essential to long term IAQ, and provide the access, training and
documentation needed to facilitate O&M.

• Commission from design through occupancy to ensure that IAQ objectives are met.

A summary document of the Indoor Air Quality Guide – ideal for a general
understanding of the importance of major IAQ issues can be downloaded for free at
www.ashrae.org/iaq. The full publication complete with a CD that contains detailed guidance
essential for practioners to design and achieve good IAQ is available in hard copy or
electronically for $29.

To order, contact ASHRAE Customer Service at 1-800-527-4723 (United States and
Canada) or 404-636-8400 (worldwide), fax 404-321-5478, or visit www.ashrae.org/bookstore.

ASHRAE, founded in 1894, is an international organization of some 50,000 persons.
ASHRAE fulfills its mission of advancing heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration
to serve humanity and promote a sustainable world through research, standards writing,
publishing and continuing education.