What’s next for healthy buildings (w/ Dr. Joe Allen)

Speakers

Resources

The First Four Healthy Building Strategies Every Building Should Pursue to Reduce Risk from COVID-19

Q&A

John Mandyck: I heard remarks about the buildings being a prescription to address viruses. What kind of capital is required dollar per square foot to deploy needed technologies beyond pre-COVID design standards, and who pays for it?

Dr. Joe Allen: Well, it’s a good question. I don’t always think it needs crazy new technology. I’ll point you to a report from the Lancet Covid 19 Commission. We put out a report this summer for healthy building strategies every building should pursue.

First thing, commission you’re building. Give your building a tuneup. Bring the design standards of your building back up. It improves indoor air quality, saves energy, saves you money. It’s hitting your climate goals.

Second thing is to increase the amount of outdoor air, just maximize what you can do with your existing systems.

Number three is to upgrade to MERV 13 filters. MERV filters protect equipment and people. That’s a no brainer.

Fourth thing is to use portable air cleaners and things like this, which gets down to a couple dollars per square foot. Everything’s getting overly complicated. There are basics everybody should do right off the bat that don’t cost a lot of money and actually might actually save money. We think it’s those four strategies.

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John Mandyck: Just to build off of that question, have you seen any building owners or developers that are actually starting to build either health or productivity paybacks into those investments?

Dr. Joe Allen: Sure. I’m proud to say for a couple years I’ve been working on a flagship building, right in midtown Manhattan, J.P. Morgan’s new headquarters. This research has caught the attention of executives. Right there in New York City you have examples and others are doing it too where you can actually achieve this. We can have healthy indoor spaces and actually have an energy efficient building.

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John Mandyck: Where have things leveled off regarding air ionization technology for HVAC systems? Does this have a decent impact on IAQ or is it somewhat negligible?

Dr. Joe Allen: Yeah, this is a highly contentious topic. There are lawsuits flying around every which way. When I look at new technology for buildings, I ask three questions. One, does it work? Simple enough. Two, does it produce any unintended consequences or byproducts? And three, what problem is it solving and what’s it replacing?

So the first one, there’s been a lot of testing that shows that it can be effective in a laboratory, but I think the efficacy depends on a lot of things. I don’t think it’s quite clear to me what the ionization targets should be and why.

For the second question, some of these technologies have the potential to produce ozone and they can create ultrafine particles. They can convert some VOCs, complex organic compounds, into less complex organic compounds. All three of those things are respiratory hazards, so you have the potential to create secondary byproducts.

For the last question, can you increase the amount of outdoor air? Can you improve the filtration? Can you use these portable air cleaners with HEPA filters? So what are you using it for that you can’t solve with some of these tried and true methods. I’m not anti-technology. I’m pro technology. For me, I just have to weigh all the technology against those kinds of criteria, which is really straightforward.

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John Mandyck: Whenever I go to an event, their Covid policies never say anything about improving fresh air for filtration. Is it just me, or is it going to take a while for retrofits? Nobody’s talking about the building, so what are questions people should ask? Have you seen buildings marketing themselves for the good work they’re doing around filtration?

Dr. Joe Allen: That’s a great question. It’s super frustrating, right? Like, how do you know? And it’s really hard to tell. John came up with that and I threw it in the book, are you interviewing your building? Air quality is invisible. You can’t really tell if it’s well ventilated or well filtered. First, I think companies should be doing it. I think there are some certifications out there. There’s a real move towards real time indoor air quality monitors. I think you’ll start to see displays. In some countries, it’s required to be displayed. I have two sensors behind me, one on my desk, which I think that’s something people can do. If you can afford a couple hundred dollars, you can get one of these lower cost CO2 monitors. You can kind of go in and quickly get a sense of your space.

Here’s something really interesting for your listeners that I think is helpful. The White House had its first ever summit on indoor air quality a couple weeks ago. They now have a Clean Air in Buildings Pledge. To make the pledge you need to have an indoor air quality plan, maximize ventilation, have good filtration for it, and engage with your community. If you do all of that, make the pledge. The White House will actually give you a stamp or a sticker. If you’re committed to doing those things, you can actually promote it in your meeting. Really cool initiative that’s brand new.

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John Mandyck: Great, next question here. How much of a health problem does mold pose in buildings?

Dr. Joe Allen: I think Covid has dominated this space, but I think those of us who do this kind of work think about the classics like mold, radon, asbestos, PCBs. These things that have never really gone away or are constant issues in buildings. I think it’s a big threat in buildings, in the sense that it can be a constant problem, but also it’s something very controllable. We know what to do with it.

I think the Covid has pushed so many public health topics off to the side, but I am starting to see some of them come back. I think hopefully we should be talking about more of these kinds of basic hazards that we’ve known about indoor air quality issues, but have sidelined in the conversation.

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John Mandyck: What are the telltale signs of the “sick building”? We don’t hear much of the terminology anymore, so are our buildings not sick anymore?

Dr. Joe Allen: I think what happened was we had a two year global sick building event that really spread indoors. We have very little evidence of outdoor transmission. So, we have to change the terminology of sick buildings because we’ve all experienced it in a devastating manner. The best way to tell a sick building is talk to the people. Honestly. People know their buildings, so talk with them, “Hey, it’s not quite right. At 4:00 there’s a smell over there” or “I have a headache every day at 5:00”. Often, people are quickly dismissed as complainers. There are hundreds of these investigations, nearly always dismissed, but they actually are the best scientific instruments and they know their buildings. Trust the people and pay attention to what you think are minor complaints.

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John Mandyck: What is your advice for low rise pre-war multifamily buildings in New York City without many resources?

Dr. Joe Allen: I’m going to take this to the absolute basics here. I think you should look for lead based paint, for asbestos, PCBs, legacy pollutants that are going to be in older buildings. I’d look for those first and foremost. Second, I’d think about integrated pest management, and controlling things like, my mouse and, cockroach and, and rat allergen. I think those are some of the basics. In terms of air quality, if there are things you can’t manage through the building right, I think you can start to solve this with lower cost portable devices.

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John Mandyck: With building electrification adoption on the rise, what ways do you foresee mass heat pump installation affecting indoor air quality?

Dr. Joe Allen: There’s positives of course on the climate side and energy side and getting off fossil fuels. I think introducing higher ventilation rates, better filtered air, and better thermal comfort are all great. I think there are a lot of benefits to be had on top of just electrification getting off fossil fuels. There’s just no reason why we’re not deploying these everywhere.

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John Mandyck: Should ERVs balanced with supply exhaust be code minimum for multifamily?

Dr. Joe Allen: Makes a lot of sense to me in terms of the merging of climate and health. When you spend all this money and energy to condition air, why aren’t we capturing that on the flip side as we’re exhausting it? We should be using energy recovery ventilation and heat recovery ventilation–these are no brainers.

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John Mandyck: There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on how much CO2 parts per million is too much. What do you recommend for multifamily?

Dr. Joe Allen: Yeah, I agree, there’s not a consensus. The rule of thumb has been a thousand parts per million. Under a thousand million, you’re good. Over a thousand million, not good. But that’s based on the design standards, which are not health based. I’ve been using 800 parts per million as a good cutoff. It depends also if you’re trying to think about overall ventilation, or Covid risk in particular.

Here’s a helpful tool to set a target, we just released it on the Harvard Healthy Buildings website last month. It lets you set a target for any space. You input how many air changes per hour, you enter the dimensions of the room, number of people in the room, and it will calculate it and tell you the CO2 concentration. That becomes your target.

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John Mandyck: Do you think ASHRAE is concerned that if they set a specific target for ventilation, they fear they’ll be held liable if people get sick? Or is it just the complexities of the buildings and the occupants?

Dr. Joe Allen: I don’t know the answer to what they’re thinking, but I’ll tell you, the liability thing is real. I think that’s what’s made people very cautious about putting out a number. I don’t know if that’s why ASHRAE hasn’t put out a number. They actually had an ASHRAE epidemic task force, I know people who served on it. They had a number, it never saw the light of day. I think the liability fear is real and I think it’s held back a lot of people in my field from putting out a number. I feel really comfortable with what’s in the book. It’s fully cited and defensible. I feel 100% confident in the numbers we put out.

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John Mandyck: Next question, I’m not sure either of us will have an answer for it but it’s a good question. How do we improve code compliance in addition to having stricter codes?

Dr. Joe Allen: Great question. That’s going to be out of my wheelhouse for sure. You can pretty quickly get a sense of whether a space is meeting that code, but I don’t know how you enforce that at that scale. I don’t know.

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John Mandyck: How do higher ceilings change air turnover needs in indoor air quality?

Dr. Joe Allen: I think we had to simplify a lot of the messaging when the pandemic hit. We simplified air change per hour, kind of giving this general guidance. But of course each building is different. There’s a lot of nuance. Of course it matters where the diffuser is. Is it diffusing from the floor, is it over in the corner, what are the flow rates, where is it located? I do think we’re overestimating transmission risk in these higher volume places because you get that dilution effect, you can still have a buildup in these places if you’re really poor ventilation and poor filtration. You do get the benefit of the added volume and dilution space.

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John Mandyck: How concerned should we be about defective plumbing and the possibility of disease transmission through pipes?

Dr. Joe Allen: Very, I think right now in particular. I’ve done a lot of work with investigations of Legionnaires’ disease, which is a waterborne bacteria. This bacteria grows in stagnant water in pipes and in dead lakes and buildings. I’ve done this work in hospitals, Legionnaires’ disease kills thousands of people every year. You’ve had major outbreaks related to cooling towers of New York City, high profile outbreaks. So it’s something we should think about for sure.

To me, it’s one of these things that’s super controllable. We know the problem, we know how to control it with temperature, disinfectant, and controlling pH. I talked about all this in the book on a section on water quality. The reason it’s still a big issue right now is because you have buildings that are at really low occupancy. You’re not getting water flowing through the pipes, you’re not getting the fresh disinfectant, there’s stagnant water and the water temperature starts to hit that sweet spot for bacterial growth. You have this massive buildup of bacteria very quickly, so you have to flush your system. I recommend testing the chlorine levels or the residual disinfectant, checking the pH levels, and checking the water temperature. Some really simple stuff, all control.

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John Mandyck: Is there a tool where we can see CFD visualized?

Dr. Joe Allen: I’ll give you a great one. We worked with the New York Times and we worked with J.B., a great engineering firm in New York, on a visual. It was a great CFD model that the New York Times put in one of their really great stories with the visuals. You can actually see the tracers of people’s respiratory aerosols coming out of their mouth through the room, see how it builds up in a room and how it blows past the six foot buffer, starts to accumulate and everyone in the room is exposed.

I thought that was one of the most effective media pieces that started to move the needle on airborne transmission in buildings. We can’t see this stuff, but once you see the CFD model, you see these tracers, it becomes obvious that this thing is going to spread beyond this little sticker on the floor that tells me where to stand. I love that New York Times visual.