Brad Pilgrim CEO, CoFounder Parity Inc.
Air Quality
Finding the (Air) Flow Improving Condo Air Quality for Increased Occupancy
No matter what the new normal will look like, one thing’s for certain: we need to start thinking about how to improve the indoor air quality in our condo buildings if we intend to stay healthy. Why does air quality matter so much and why should it matter to your condo board and property manager? Well, a few things have dramatically changed which affect how tenants and residents occupy a condo building. First, people are working at home more often (44 per cent of Canadian households now work from home fulltime and intend to continue). And as Canadians settle into new home routines, residential electricity demand patterns have also changed to reflect these new habits. Data shows energy consumption in residential homes has increased on weekdays by about 5 per cent, and that’s just the beginning.
So, why does this matter? With more people confined to smaller spaces for longer hours in the day, there is increased occupancy per suite resulting in a need to keep occupants safe from higher CO2, humidity and indoor pollutant levels. In order to maintain healthy buildings and healthy condo communities, condo boards and building managers must evaluate how to accommodate tenant needs and adjust building operations moving forward with air quality improvements in mind.
giene products, air fresheners, computers, printers, cooking, carrying dust in on our shoes and from the carbon dioxide we breathe out.
Fresh air quality is measured mainly by factors like temperature, CO2 concentration and humidity. Elevated indoor levels of CO2 and humidity have unfavourable effects on health. When the air quality is rated as poor or mediocre in shared spaces due to high CO2, people feel drowsiness, attention loss, headaches, nausea, and may also lower resistance to infection .
As we learn more about the direct impacts air quality has on our health, it’s important to better control our condo airflow to reduce the risk of health concerns of occupants.
Furthermore, indoor pollutants can directly affect our health. Those pollutants are generated from any number of sources, like second-hand smoke, building materials, furniture, cleaning and hy-
In fact, a recent study from Harvard University’s School of Public Health found that people in areas with slightly higher levels of particulate matter had higher death rates from COVID-19. There was an eight per cent increase in corona virus deaths for a single-unit rise in fine particle pollution.
Thankfully, a condominium doesn’t have to be a new development or green-certified in order to supply fresher, cleaner air. There’s low-hanging fruit that a property can adopt for improved air ventilation, like installing more sophisticated air filters, drawing more fresh air into buildings and cranking up the humidity to can kill airborne pathogens and viruses. CONDOVOICE FALL 2020
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ILLUSTRATION BY JAMIE BENNET
We spend a lot of time indoors (up to an estimated 90 per cent of our time ). And the fact is, with the ongoing pandemic restrictions, we might have to get used to cocooning in our condo suites.
