Daydreaming Might Be a Sign You Need To Improve Your Indoor Ventilation

CO2 levels are one of the quickest indicators that there is little ventilation in your space. In science class, we were taught that we breathe in oxygen and breathe out C02. So, when environmental sensors, like Spaceti’s, register high levels of C02 in an area, it means that all the air that is being expelled isn’t getting replaced with oxygen, and therefore, there is no regular stream of new “fresh” air. You can take this a step further and check the historical CO2 data on the dashboard and compare it with the occupancy rate.

Indoor ventilation can reduce the risk of airborne transmissions. If the CO₂ levels are too high, you can assume that there is bad ventilation and therefore, an increased risk of COVID-19 transmission.

 The following suggestions were adapted from suggestions reported by the WHO, CDC, and the article, “Intermittent occupancy combined with ventilation: An efficient strategy for the reduction of airborne transmission indoors,” as cited below.

1. 1. Ventilation should be on before any occupants enter a room. Whatever you have, turn it on, or open a window. It’s even better to keep the ventilations on, window open, during the breaks when there are no occupants in the room.
   2. Vacate the space for a short break of 10-20 minutes roughly every hour. At school, we always had a 10-minute break between classes. The same should be implemented in offices. This allows for the concentration of potential particles to dissipate over time.
   3. Increasing room size could become a double-edged sword – you think that you increase the room volume to decrease the risk of infection but then often you also increase the occupation size. But the catch is, you never know who is asymptomatic, and therefore, you could only be increasing the number of infected people in one room.

If you haven’t read our case study on improving indoor air quality, you can find it here.

1. Melikov, A. K., Ai, Z. T., & Markov, D. G. (2020). Intermittent occupancy combined with ventilation: An efficient strategy for the reduction of airborne transmission indoors. The Science of the Total Environment, 744, 14090 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720344375#s00208. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140908
2. https://www.epa.gov/coronavirus/ventilation-and-coronavirus-covid-19
3. https://theconversation.com/how-to-use-ventilation-and-air-filtration-to-prevent-the-spread-of-coronavirus-indoors-143732