Pollutants emission from building materials and their influence on indoor air quality and people performance in offices

New technologies and materials have introduced a large quantity of new pollutants emitted to the indoor air. Energy conservation for economical reasons, resulting in low outdoor air supply rates, can become the reason of a poor indoor air quality. The cost of the deteriorated indoor climate, resulting in reduced comfort and losses in productivity, for the society is higher than the costs for the heating energy or ventilation systems in the same building. An experiment was conducted to determine how poor indoor air quality could cause involuntary changes in performance and occurring sick building syndrome symptoms. Twenty-four female subjects were exposed to three environmental conditions, while performing normal office tasks in a low-polluting room. Sick building syndrome symptoms, the perceived air quality and performance data were obtained. The acceptability of air quality was significantly better and the odour intensity was much lower under the conditions of high ventilation. The performance of the people, who took part in the experiment, in a two-digit addition task was significantly better under a high ventilation.