QUESTION OF THE MONTH. How To Achieve Healthy Indoor Air

For us people, who now spend most of the day in closed rooms, the quality of the indoor air is important. Because health, performance and well-being depend crucially on whether "where the air is" or "thick air" is in the place where we are.

Sources of pollutants

Healthy indoor air is free of impurities, has a comfortable temperature and has an air humidity between 30 and 50 percent RH. But where do impurities in the indoor air come from? Pollutants can, for example, from the interior, such as furniture or flooring, from technical devices, for. B. printers, but also by the building materials used. To assess the indoor air quality, the pollutants are measured, with special attention to the VOC (volatile organic compounds), and the measurement results are compared with values from standards or regulations. For building materials, this is described in the European Building Products Regulation and in national building regulations. These demand that the health of users of buildings must not be endangered. With us in Germany, the requirement for avoiding and limiting indoor pollutants is laid down in the state building regulations.

Assess damage

For implementation in practice, the AgBB (Committee for Health Assessment of Construction Products) has developed test criteria and an evaluation scheme with which the VOC emissions of interior-relevant building materials can be checked and evaluated. Products that meet these criteria are “tested according to the AgBB scheme” and can be used indoors without hesitation.

What can you do?

Already when planning a new building or a renovation measure, you should inform yourself about the properties of the construction products. For the painter, there are already a large number of paints and varnishes that have been tested according to the AgBB scheme and allow processing without pollutants. At ZERO-LACK they are marked with the note "AgBB-compliant". And: the right ventilation is important! Because healthy indoor air always requires good, regular air exchange.