You’ve probably heard a lot about CO2. It’s the greenhouse gas at the center of climate change reduction efforts. It’s the primary product released during the combustion of fossil fuels like oil and coal and is released in sufficient quantities to affect how sunlight interacts with the atmosphere.
However, CO2 is also the gas that humans and animals breathe out after consuming oxygen. This means that high concentrations can build up in indoor areas where many people are present. These local concentrations are another matter to consider entirely. A study by researchers at Harvard, SUNY Upstate Medical School, and Syracuse University found indoor CO2 levels could be more than three times as high as outside.
In addition to the wide range of germs and contaminants that indoor air quality must deal with, it’s now clear that CO2 is just as important. To deal with this issue, building managers need access to tools and solutions that let them accurately monitor and manage indoor air quality and ventilation.
Why Are CO2 Concentrations High in Indoor Environments?
CO2 is a pressing environmental issue, but the levels in the atmosphere responsible for climate change don’t directly impact anyone’s health. It’s only in indoor environments that the impact on health and productivity starts to be seen.
At the most basic level, CO2 is higher in indoor areas because those are spaces that are shared with other people. Everyone exhales CO2 with every breath they take, increasing the concentration in their local environment. Outdoors, the abundance of ventilation available swiftly disperses any increase in concentration. However, indoor environments are another matter.
Buildings require ventilation to prevent low indoor air quality. Fresh air must be circulated through buildings to prevent the buildup of dust, contaminants, germs, and CO2. However, ventilation isn’t always effective. Buildings can have any number of issues with their ventilation that can allow CO2 to accumulate to harmful levels.
Even when everything is working properly, there is another major problem that building managers must address. Any fresh air that is brought into a building must be cooled or heated to the appropriate temperature. During the hot summer months, the cost of air conditioning can be very high. This means that every bit of fresh air entering the building costs the building owner money.
This means that building owners need to find a balance between fresh and recirculated air in their buildings. In many cases, buildings have around 20% fresh intake air and 80% recirculated air. In some cases, this is more than enough ventilation, but in others, this can allow CO2 and other pollutants to build up indoors.
Densely occupied buildings are among the most likely to have insufficient ventilation. With more people comes more CO2 production and buildup. Office buildings, schools, retirement homes, hospitals, and other buildings where there are many people in close proximity can’t get by with the same level of ventilation that a private home or smaller business might.
Finding the right approach to ventilation is incredibly important. Excessive ventilation can cause additional utility costs, but inadequate ventilation carries a wide range of negative consequences as well.
The Health Impact of CO2 in Indoor Environments
In indoor environments, CO2 can reach levels that have direct health effects. Many of these effects have been investigated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency has carried out research into the link between CO2 and the so-called “sick building syndrome.”
Sick building syndrome is a general term used to refer to the increased symptoms found in buildings with low indoor air quality. While many of these symptoms are difficult to trace to a direct cause, whether that’s germs, dust, allergens, or CO2, the EPA has shown that high CO2 concentrations do contribute to some of them.
Issues like sore throats and coughs were among the most closely linked to CO2 concentrations in indoor environments. Other symptoms can include headaches, tiredness, and difficulty concentrating. The concentration at which symptoms occur can vary, with higher concentrations generally resulting in more widespread and severe symptoms.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers provides a wide range of HVAC and air quality standards in the United States and abroad. Ventilation for indoor air quality is covered in ASHRAE Standard 62.1-2016. The standard recommends that ventilation systems be designed and maintained to prevent CO2 from reaching about 1,200ppm, or slightly over double typical outdoor levels.
Building owners have a responsibility to ensure that occupants and visitors have clean, fresh air. However, there are also more direct incentives for a building manager to want CO2 levels to remain low.
Indoor CO2 Levels and Productivity
The simple fact of the matter is that being in an indoor environment with high CO2 negatively affects how both how we feel and how we perform. When CO2 concentrations are high, people aren’t able to achieve the same level of productivity. This is a major problem, considering CO2 is higher in populated indoor spaces like offices, schools, and other areas where we’re expected to be productive.
This isn’t just drawing a connection between how low indoor air quality makes people feel and how they can perform. A study published in Environmental Health Perspectives took a closer look at the direct connection between CO2 in indoor environments and productivity.
Their findings were incredibly clear – CO2 concentrations in indoor environments have a real impact on productivity. They impeded people’s ability to think clearly, make effective decisions, and carry out their job duties. This has a negative effect on their lives and can be economically important to their employers.
The reduction in productivity caused by high CO2 concentrations in indoor environments can cost companies more than the potential cost of improving their indoor air quality. This is particularly true when building managers try to save on cooling and heating costs by increasing air circulation. They can save money by limiting the amount of fresh air that needs cooling or heating, but it’s costing them more in lost productivity.
CO2 and Other Indoor Air Contaminants
Indoor air can be around three times as polluted as outdoor air. There are more types of potential contaminants than could be listed here and certainly more than anyone could reasonably monitor. Between chemicals, organic compounds, germs, allergens, and more, there’s no way to get an exact count for every individual contaminant.
CO2 is an important aspect of indoor air quality to monitor because it provides a general overview of how effective ventilation is at any given time. CO2 is always accumulating as people in the indoor environment breathe it out. This means that levels will rise steadily if ventilation isn’t sufficient.
Having a healthy CO2 level indicates that ventilation is effective. That means that enough fresh air is coming in to deal with not just CO2 but a wide range of other contaminants as well. As fresh air comes in and stale air goes out, it carries away all kinds of contaminants – even the ones that you can’t measure.
Implementing Effective CO2 Management
CO2 concentrations in indoor spaces are dynamic. They change with the number of people present and the ventilation being provided. This means that there isn’t any one-size-fits-all approach to configuring ventilation for proper CO2 management. Any approach based on a single set point is going to either provide insufficient ventilation or waste energy on excess ventilation.
That’s why building managers need a solution based on real-time measurement. The only effective approach to CO2 concentration management is to measure and react to the changing conditions throughout the day. With health, productivity, and costs at stake, building managers need to be sure that the solution they’re using can really deliver.
This is even more important considering the role that CO2 concentrations play in showing the overall effectiveness of ventilation. Without knowing whether or not a building has sufficient ventilation, a building manager is allowing any number of other contaminants to accumulate as well.
Measuring CO2 in Indoor Environments With Sol-In
Sol-In provides building owners and managers and HVAC specialists with a solution for CO2 and indoor air quality monitoring. This robust system monitors and analyzes air quality and CO2 concentrations to provide the best possible understanding of ventilation and air quality in any indoor space.
The Sol-In System makes it possible to optimize ventilation for individual indoor spaces. With dispersed sensors providing real-time data at multiple locations, building managers can provide additional ventilation where it’s really needed. This keeps CO2 concentrations low and improves air quality without excessive air conditioning or heating costs.
The system also provides real-time alerts that let building managers and maintenance teams take decisive action. Air quality is communicated through the intuitive Sol-In Index, so everyone can know the current state of air quality at any given time and make decisions according.
Air quality and CO2 data are transmitted securely to the Sol-In cloud, where advanced analyses based on machine learning provide even richer insights. The system includes forecasting capabilities that let building managers take action before air quality drops instead of after.
Sol-In is a comprehensive solution that lets building managers tackle the unique challenges posed by ventilation and CO2 concentrations in indoor environments. You’ll be able to improve air quality, increase productivity, and reduce utility costs with the Sol-In system.
If you’re responsible for indoor air quality and ventilation in buildings like offices, schools, and other facilities, you can reach out to Sol-In to find out how our solution can change the way you manage indoor air quality.
