The Effects of Opening Windows Behavior on Indoor Air Quality of a Newly Decorated Office Building

Abstract

In the newly decorated office premises, the architectural decoration material will release much polluted gas, thus the IAQ is highly concerned. Natural ventilation through open windows can influence the IAQ. To study the effects of opening windows on the indoor air quality of newly decorated office premises, we choose several newly decorated offices in a commercial building in Changsha, a city in hot summer and cold winter region of China, as the study object. The 4 contrastive research schemes in the winter are adopted to acquire the results. Field-testing and air sampling methods were taken respectively to the 4 schemes to measure the concentrations of the main pollution composition such as formaldehyde, ammonia, benzene and TVOC in the offices. Meanwhile, relevant questionnaire surveys towards the four schemes were taken to the staff in the offices. We have synthesized and analyzed the IAQ condition of the 4 research schemes from the results of the tests and surveys. The result of the study shows that: the IAQ is the worst and cannot come up to the national standard when closing windows all day long in the newly decorated offices. Also some staff have a series of adverse reactions working in the work environment for a long time. All the other three schemes can improve the IAQ differently, and the scheme that opening windows all day long can improve the IAQ the best. Meanwhile, people can feel the change of IAQ effected by the 3 ventilation schemes if he/she is working for a long time in the offices.