About The Importance of Indoor Air Quality

**Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) as an expression refers to the quality of air in indoor environments, which is important for occupants in any building, as it has an impact on their health and their performance in their everyday life activities.**

Indoor environments contribute significantly to exposure to air pollutants. People spend almost 90% of their time indoors, where air quality can be affected by penetrating outdoor air, specific indoor pollution sources and the lack of air exchange.

Some pollutants may even be more concentrated indoors than outdoors. That means that indoor air quality, whether it is at home, office, or hotel rooms, it can be 2 to 5 times worse than outdoor air.

That is why providing indoor environments with air exchange is vital.

The COVID-19 emergency has shone a light on the importance of keeping air quality levels high through air exchange, often used to bring contaminant concentration down or even close to zero.

Air exchange can be provided in different ways, such as simply keeping windows open, but it goes without saying that such an option is not always possible or sensible, both from an energy efficiency and a thermal dispersion perspective.

**Mechanical ventilation**:
A more viable option for ventilation of the premises is mechanical ventilation. Mechanical systems can introduce properly filtered air from the external environment and simultaneously extract the internal air, expelling it outside. This allows proper ventilation and air exchange in indoor environments, diluting or even removing the possible presence of bacteria, viruses, CO2, and other contaminants.

While doing that, mechanical ventilation systems can also ensure energy savings, thanks to heat recovery features. These features transfer heat and moisture from the extracted airflow into the newly introduced airflow.

These systems, besides being extremely effective in replacing exhaust air and ensuring high indoor air quality levels, also guarantee perfect thermal control, minimizing or avoiding thermal dissipation and making the whole building more efficient when it comes to energy consumption.

Finally, other aspects that can be addressed with mechanical ventilation and can make indoor environments healthier are:

- air processing, which can help filtering out pollen, dust and odours that are harmful to our health;
- and humidification, which provides the desired moisture level in the conditioned space.

**Things to consider when designing a HVAC system**:
When designing HVAC systems, whether for residential buildings, schools, offices, commercial buildings or light commercial buildings, meeting the cooling and heating demand of the buildings in the most energy efficient way possible is very important. Nevertheless, there are equally important aspects that should not be overlooked such as ventilation, air filtration and indoor air quality.

Ventilation systems are essential to ensure a comfortable and healthy environment in buildings of all sizes and types. To do that, though, they need to be properly sized so that the right airflow and adequate air exchange rate can be ensured.

In fact, there is a close correlation between the ventilation rate and how clean indoor air is. The higher the ventilation rate per hour in a room, the lower the pollutants concentration will become.

**Cleaning and maintenance activities**:
Lastly, to get the most out of a ventilation system, properly scheduled maintenance is a must. Regular cleaning and maintenance checks ensure all systems continue to work smoothly and remain reliable.

**About Daikin**

**Air** is essential to our existence. It has always been Daikin’s mission to **make the air we breathe and live in the best possible**. Our innovative products and solutions are designed to improve people’s health and well-being and reduce the environmental impact of heating and cooling. By 2050 Daikin aims to be carbon neutral throughout the full value chain and the full life cycle of its products and solutions.

**Daikin Europe N.V.**

Daikin Europe N.V. is a subsidiary of Daikin Industries Ltd. and the leading provider of heating, cooling, ventilation, air purification and refrigeration technology. The company designs, manufactures and brings to market a broad portfolio of equipment, as well as tailored-made solutions for residential, commercial and industrial purposes in Europe, Middle East and Africa. To date Daikin Europe N.V. has over 12 000 employees across more than 24 EMEA affiliates. It has 12 major manufacturing facilities based in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Austria and the UK. The headquarters of the Daikin Europe Group are in Belgium, Ostend. The company was established in 1972, production in Europe started in 1973.

**Total Solution provider for heating, cooling, ventilation and refrigeration**

Daikin Europe can rely on a strong network of installers and partners across its regions thanks to nearly 50 years of innovative and en