B063 Office IAQ benchmarks

Indoor Air Quality Benchmarks of ‘Grade A’ Offices in Hong Kong

Brief:

This paper proposes a simple and practical indoor air quality (IAQ) benchmarking system that uses star ratings to score air-conditioned offices in Hong Kong. An IAQ index was used as the benchmarking parameter. The index was determined by the average fractional dose to certain exposure limits of three selected most representative common indoor air pollutants in the offices, i.e. carbon dioxide (CO₂), respirable suspended particulates (RSP) and total volatile organic compounds (TVOC). Referenced from the results of the full IAQ assessment, the IAQ star rating system was used for grading 103 Grade A offices in Hong Kong. The results showed that 74% of them were awarded the highest two rating ‘five stars’ and ‘four stars’, which attributed better IAQ among the office stocks. The offices with lower star ratings were due to high exposure concentrations of TVOC. This simple IAQ benchmarks would be an indication of IAQ in air-conditioned offices, and its simplicity would help to promote the idea of maintaining better IAQ to the general public.

Further Information:

Hui PS, Wong LT, Mui KW, 2008. Indoor Air Quality Benchmarks of ‘Grade A’ Offices in Hong Kong, The 1^st International Conference on Building Energy and Environment (COBEE), 13-16 July, Dalian, China, pp. 703-708. Also abstract in the book of abstract p.93.