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Ventilation and Air Quality in Offices
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Ventilation Standards and Building Codes
After achieving industry consensus in 1989, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) published its "Standard 62-1989: Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality." This is a voluntary standard for "minimum ventilation rates and indoor air quality that will be acceptable to human occupants and are intended to avoid adverse health effects." This standard applies to all types of facilities, including dry cleaners, laundries, hotels, dormitories, retail stores, sports and amusement facilities, and teaching, convalescent and correctional facilities. The specified rates at which outdoor air must be supplied to each room within the facility range from 15 to 60 cfm/person, depending on the activities that normally occur in that room.
Standard 62-1989 is a voluntary standard, which means that it becomes enforceable only after a state or locality adopts the standard in its building code. Furthermore, most current building codes pertaining to ventilation are standards only for the way buildings in a particular jurisdiction must be designed; they are not enforceable standards for the way the buildings are operated. A few states, through recently promulgated regulations, pending legislation, labor agreements and other mechanisms, are working to apply existing design codes and standards to building operations.
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