**6. Discussion and suggestion**

110 Health Management – Different Approaches and Solutions

2. Temperature and humidity: High indoor temperature would only cause discomfort of occupants. Opening windows or turning on air-conditioners would alleviate the hotness and stuffiness inside a room. The high temperature and humidity problem of underground parking lots can be solved by increasing the operation times and length of ventilation fans. Humidity measurements taken on raining days are usually higher. However, building managers still need to check if the indoor ventilation planning is adequate, and they should find air-conditioning professionals to do a close evaluation. If the water which evaporates from swimming pools spread to the entire indoor public space or households, the higher humidity tends to make mildew grow on the surface of interior fitting and decoration. When the fungus of mildew spread in the air, occupants

3. High CO content: The students once detected a value of CO content slightly higher than the standard recommended by the Taiwan government (9 ppm) in a basement. The recommendation given to the occupants was not to stay in the basement for a long time. If people need to work in the basement such as cleaning, they should turn on ventilation fans to emit carbon monoxide. However, if the air quality is still not improved after frequency of ventilation has been increased after another test by a CO content meter; the manager must check if it is due to bad planning of ventilation systems or malfunction of ventilation fans. If that is the case, they must change the planning or replace the ventilation fans. Furthermore, the news reports of CO poisoning incidents shows that CO poisoning usually happens at home in the winter, which can be explained by people tend to close windows in the winter, which results in bad ventilation, and they also do not install forced exhaust ventilation device on their gas stoves or water heaters. As a result, even if CO content measurements are normal, if the indoor ventilation is bad, it is still

4. High CO2 problem: If a crowd stay in an indoor space for a long time, the content of CO2 tends to rise higher than the normal value. If space size is the limiting factor, the number of occupants or staying time should be lowered. If the number of occupants and staying time are both the limiting factors, it is advised to improve the efficiency and

5. Illumination: Due to the consideration of energy saving or the close distance from the neighbouring buildings, the degree of illumination in some lobbies' seating areas tends to be low (for example, one is as low as 67 Lux). If the area is simply used for resting instead of reading, low lighting would not cause any inconvenience. In the daytime tests, some of the insufficient lighting areas are stairways and driveways of underground parking lots. It is suggested to install more lights. If the managers want to avoid unnecessary energy costs, they can install motion sensor lights. For the driveways of underground parking lots, the lights in some areas are often blocked by fire protection or water supply piping, so its degree of illumination does not meet CNS recommendation values. Under the circumstance, the lights can be changed to hanging

6. Problem of TVOCs: The figures measured inside new system furniture closets tended to be higher, but the closets are usually closed so it is not a serious problem. As it is easier for TVOCs to vaporize during the summer time, building managers may use electric fans or other means of ventilation to let TVOCs flow out. High level of TVOCs was also

do not need to worry about the problem.

may be prone to develop respiratory diseases or allergies.

necessary to advise occupants to improve the ventilation.

power of the ventilation systems.

lights (or adjust the location of lights slightly).

performance. However, if occupants would not listen to the noise for a long time, they

As the influence of indoor air quality and indoor environment quality are so significant to human health, the knowledge of BHD is also crucial to architects and civil engineers. In 2010, an incident of carbon monoxide killed several people in an apartment building. Architects and civil engineers who had built the building faced criminal charge and were sentenced jail time because the improper design and construction of the building caused carbon monoxide flowed to different floor levels. Although the higher court is still deliberating on the appeal, it also showed the training and education of healthy environment planning, construction, and inspection are still insufficient or have been long ignored in the traditional architecture and civil engineering fields. Thus, in the future, cross-disciplinary knowledge, such as medicine, public health, and environmental protection, should be integrated to form a discipline of healthy environment planning and management which would be taught, studied and applied to the field practices of architecture and construction. In this way, architects and civil engineers are able to make sure future building users are protected from any health hazards. Furthermore, at the later stage of building lifecycle, property managers must be able to apply their management and maintenance expertise to eliminating any health hazard problems hidden in the environment or hardware of the buildings for 50 or more years of building use and management period.

There are many potential health hazard factors existing in household environments, including: hazardous gas, poor air quality, bad water quality, EMF, radiation, over-bright or insufficient lighting, noise, temperature, and humidity. Particular space, building materials, facilities, or inappropriate use habits can become the direct or indirect source of pollution. For example, bad ventilation plan (especially close or underground space), hazardous building materials (such as vaporized formaldehyde or high concentration of TVOCs), unsatisfying building material performance (such as bad sound proof performance of windows or doors), using electrical appliances for a long time and in close

Making a Healthy Living Space Through the Concept of Healthy Building of Building Medicine 113

A few things must be noted when using the test devices. Before using test devices, inspectors must check if the devices are calibrated (or calibrating the devices regularly), and must make sure consumable sensor parts are within their expiratory dates (such as HCHO sensing strips) to avoid inaccurate measurements. Furthermore, when performing tests with devices, inspectors also need to choose an appropriate testing location and testing time. For the choice of location, taking EMF test as an example, if inspectors perform the test in the area of electrical facilities, they will get a higher figure (see Fig. 19). However, people usually do not spend a lot time in this area. Even if the figure is higher, as long as it is lower than the standard value, it does not need to feel concerned, and the test report based on this result is not very meaningful. Therefore, inspectors should find the locations frequented by occupants, for example, the activity areas of elderly and children (such as the children playground in Fig. 19). Furthermore, Fig.20 shows that test of CO2 level in the library room should be done when there are people inside so that the result would be closer to the reality. It is also more appropriate to perform the test of CO level during the peak hours because cars come in and out frequently. Tests on photocopiers should be done when the

photocopiers are being operated to gather a more precise and reasonable figures.

X O

Fig. 19. EMF tests in the electric facility area (left) and the children playground (right)

Fig. 20. CO2 level test in the library (left) / CO level test in the basement(middle) / O3 level

Undoubtedly, healthy building is a very important research subject. However, no matter how many studies on the correlation between indoor environment and health of occupants have been done to stress the importance of this subject, if there is no participation on the part of building designers, construction engineers, and managers, the importance of the issue would not be fully recognized. Therefore, architects, civil engineers and property

test on a photocopier(right)

**7. Conclusion** 

distance (for example, long-time use of an electric blanket), decreasing facility performance (such as brightness of fluorescent lights reduced because they are covered by dust). In conclusion, when occupants show signs of discomfort during the indoor activities, building managers may need to check if the discomfort is caused by building environments. The association chart of building health check items, symptoms, and possible disease above (see Fig. 18) can be used as a reference. If it is necessary, professional test agencies or experts can also be brought in to maintain the health and safety of our own living environments.

Fig. 18. The association chart of building health check items, symptoms, and possible disease

A few things must be noted when using the test devices. Before using test devices, inspectors must check if the devices are calibrated (or calibrating the devices regularly), and must make sure consumable sensor parts are within their expiratory dates (such as HCHO sensing strips) to avoid inaccurate measurements. Furthermore, when performing tests with devices, inspectors also need to choose an appropriate testing location and testing time. For the choice of location, taking EMF test as an example, if inspectors perform the test in the area of electrical facilities, they will get a higher figure (see Fig. 19). However, people usually do not spend a lot time in this area. Even if the figure is higher, as long as it is lower than the standard value, it does not need to feel concerned, and the test report based on this result is not very meaningful. Therefore, inspectors should find the locations frequented by occupants, for example, the activity areas of elderly and children (such as the children playground in Fig. 19). Furthermore, Fig.20 shows that test of CO2 level in the library room should be done when there are people inside so that the result would be closer to the reality. It is also more appropriate to perform the test of CO level during the peak hours because cars come in and out frequently. Tests on photocopiers should be done when the photocopiers are being operated to gather a more precise and reasonable figures.

Fig. 19. EMF tests in the electric facility area (left) and the children playground (right)

Fig. 20. CO2 level test in the library (left) / CO level test in the basement(middle) / O3 level test on a photocopier(right)
