Indoor Air Quality - Issues, Guidance, Information and News

Indoor Air Quality - Issues, Guidance, Information and News

Building Air Quality: A Guide for Building Owners and Facility Managers The Building Air Quality, developed by the EPA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, provides practical suggestions on preventing, identifying, and resolving indoor air quality (IAQ) problems in public and commercial buildings. This guidance provides information on factors affecting indoor air quality; describes how to develop an IAQ profile of building conditions and create an IAQ management plan; describes investigative strategies to identify causes of IAQ problems; and provides criteria for assessing alternative mitigation strategies, determining whether a problem has been resolved, and deciding whether to consult outside technical specialists. Other topics included in the guide are key problem causing factors; air quality sampling; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems; moisture problems; and additional sources of information. The order form is available from IAQ INFO via EPA Document Reference Number 402-F-91-102, December 1991.

The text of Building Air Quality is available here as a series of PDF files which you can download and view or print. You can go to the table of contents and select just the form or section that you need to download and view/print, or you can download the entire PDF version of the guide as a ZIPPED file to view/print. You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these files and you will need a utility to unzip the file, both are provided here.

Go to the Building Air Quality Table of Contents and select the specific PDF file that you require.

Download the Zip File of the entire Building Air Quality PDFs.


To obtain the loose-leaf-format version of the Building Air Quality, complete with appendices, an index, and a full set of useful forms, GPO Stock # 055-000-00602-4, for $28, contact the: Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954, or call (202) 512-1800, fax (202) 512-2250.

Information on how to order the "Building Air Quality Training Kit" with instructor materials and handouts to conduct a 4-hour companion course ($150.00) to Building Air Quality: A Guide for Building Owners and Facility Managers, listed above is available through the IAQ INFO Clearinghouse.

Information on how to order the "Orientation to Indoor Air Quality" instructor and student materials used to conduct a 21/2 day training course ($180.00) is available through the IAQ INFO Clearinghouse.

Building Air Quality Action Plan The Building Air Quality Action Plan (BAQ Action Plan) meets the needs of building owners and managers who want an easy-to-understand path for taking their building from current conditions and practices to the successful institutionalization of good IAQ management practices. It emphasizes changing how you operate and maintain your building, not increasing the amount of work or cost of maintaining your building. The BAQ Action Plan follows 8 logical steps and includes a 100-item Checklist that is designed to help verify implementation of the Action Plan.

In order to use the Building Air Quality Action Plan effectively, one must have a thorough understanding of the concepts and practice of managing indoor air quality, an understanding that can be gained from a thorough reading of Building Air Quality: A Guide for Building Owners and Facility Managers (BAQ). In addition, there is extensive internal referencing of this BAQ Action Plan to the original BAQ guide, making it helpful and easy to use both documents together. EPA Document Reference Number 402-K-98-001, 1998.

Introduction to Indoor Air Quality: A Self-Paced Learning Module The Indoor Air Quality Learning Module and its companion document, the Indoor Air Quality Reference Manual, provide an introduction to indoor air quality for environmental health professionals. Primary focus is on residential indoor air quality. Documents cover those aspects of indoor air quality important for establishing an indoor air quality program by a state or local government agency. Developed under a cooperative arrangement between the National Environmental Health Association, the Bureau of Health Professions of the U.S. Public Health Service, and the Indoor Air Division of the EPA. EPA Document Reference Number 400-39-1002, July 1991.

Introduction to Indoor Air Quality: A Reference Manual The Indoor Air Quality Reference Manual is the companion document to the Indoor Air Quality Learning Module. The Reference Manual provides an opportunity for continuing education plus useful reference material on selected indoor air quality topics. Divided into eight sections corresponding to the first eight lessons of the Learning Module, the Reference Manual also contains information and exhibits which can be used in field investigations (e.g., problem diagnosis, sample measurement, data collection forms, and a listing of public health and occupational standards). Developed under a cooperative arrangement between the National Environmental Health Association, the Bureau of Health Professions of the U.S. Public Health Service, and the Indoor Air Division of the EPA, July 1991.

• "The U.S. EPA/ORD Large Buildings Study," Results of the Initial Survey of Randomly selected GSA Buildings, Fortmann, Clayton, Highsmith and Nelson, 1994.
  
  
• S.E. Womble, R. Axelrad, J.R. Girman, R. Thompson, and V.R. Highsmith, "EPA BASE Program - Collecting Baseline Information on Indoor Air Quality," Proceedings of Indoor Air '93, Vol. 1, pp. 821-825.
  
  
• S.E. Womble, J.R. Girman, E.L. Ronca, R. Axelrad, H.S. Brightman, and J.F. McCarthy "Developing Baseline Information on Buildings and Indoor Air Quality (BASE '94): Part I - Study Design, Building Selection, and Building Descriptions. Proceedings of Healthy Buildings '95, Milan, Italy, Vol. 3, pp. 1305-1310.
  
  
• J.R. Girman, S.E. Womble, and E.L. Ronca, "Developing Baseline Information on Buildings and Indoor Air Quality (BASE '94): Part II - Environmental Pollutant Measurements and Occupant Perceptions," Proceedings of Healthy Buildings '95, Milan, Italy, Vol. 3, pp. 1311-1316.
  
  
• S.E. Womble, E.L. Ronca, J.R. Girman, and H.S. Brightman, Developing Baseline Information on Buildings and Indoor Air Quality (BASE '95)," ASHRAE IAQ '96, Path to Better Building Environments.
  
  
• H.S. Brightman, S.E. Womble, E.L. Ronca, and J.R. Girman, '95 Baseline Information on Indoor Air Quality in Large Buildings (BASE '95). Proceedings of Indoor Air '96, The 7th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, Vol 3, pp. 1033-1038. This paper presents selected data from 16 BASE buildings studied during 1995. It provides a summary of building descriptions including information about building age; size; heating, air-conditioning and ventilation (HVAC) system type; occupant number; and smoking policy. This paper also summarizes environmental pollutant measurements, and occupant perceptions of indoor air quality in the 16 BASE buildings.