Keep Your Work Place Healthy by Proper Ventilation

What is Ventilation

Ventilation is defined as the intentional movement of fresh air from outside a building to inside. If there is something burning (a fireplace, gas heater, candle, oil lamp etc.) more oxygen is replaced by carbon dioxide. The purpose of the chimney is to move air from inside to outside. It causes infiltration or natural ventilation. The resulting negative pressure change induced in the building typically causes a flow of air to move into the building. Continuous air circulation is necessary to keep the interior healthier. Lowering the concentrations of indoor air pollutants in your work place is to be done by increasing the amount of outdoor air coming in.

A Roof Top Ventilator

Whether  you are building your factory, office, workplace,  or taking care of the one you are in now, the importance of good ventilation cannot be over emphasized. it helps protect your health. Studies show that good ventilation is critical to your safety and comfort. it has also shown that with good ventilation, there's less likelihood of suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) provided all other variations  remain constant. proper ventilation supplies fresh air to your workplace and dilutes or removes stale air. if there is something burning, more oxygen is replace by carbon dioxide. the purpose of the chimney in buildings is to move air from inside to outside. it causes infiltration or natural ventilation. an efficient means of extracting warm and stale air is through roof mounted turbo ventilators which create positive draft.

Importance of Ventilation

Ventilation in a structure is important to remove water vapour formed by respiration, burning and cooking. It is required for removing odours, e.g., from a toilet or kitchen. If water vapour is permitted to accumulate, it may damage the structure, insulation or finishing. It is reported that improper ventilation is the cause of about half of all indoor air quality problems in your work place.

Ventilation is becoming a point of major concern for industrial workplaces and factories due to the fumes, gases, vapours and heat generated. In natural ventilation, air moves through opened windows and doors. Air movement associated with infiltration and natural ventilation is caused by air temperature differences between indoors and outdoors and by wind. 

Equipments to Handle Ventilation

There are a number of mechanical devices that help steady ventilation. Generally exhaust fans are used to remove air from rooms, such as bathrooms and kitchens. There are air handling systems that use fans and duct to continuously remove indoor air and distribute filtered and conditioned outdoor air to strategic points throughout the work place. When there is little infiltration, natural ventilation, or mechanical ventilation, the air exchange rate will be low and pollutant levels will increase.

But most heating and cooling systems, including forced air heating systems do not mechanically bring fresh air inside. Opening windows and doors, operating window or attic fans, when the weather permits, or running a window air-conditioner with the vent control open increases the ventilation rate. Local bathroom or kitchen fans that exhaust outdoors remove contaminants, including moisture, directly from the room where the fan is located and also increase the outdoor air ventilation rate.

Ideal work places should have some kind of mechanical ventilation to remove pollutants. Whether a mechanical ventilation system makes sense in your existing homes depends on the house, your existing heating, ventilation and air circulating systems.

It’s unfortunate that some of our workplaces are NOT well ventilated and we don’t even know how to go about it looking at the issues surrounding our environment(workplace). Its in our health interest to note that our health insurances should be geared towards preventive healthcare than curative. THIS IS A WAKE-UP CALL AND  LETS BE CONSCIOUS OF OUR VENTILATION IN OUR WORK PLACES.