ABSTRACT
In 1984, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested that up to 30 percent of all new and remodeled buildings worldwide experienced excessive indoor air quality complaints.1 From 1989 to 1990, The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) indoor air quality requests jumped from 8 percent to 52 percent. In 1989, NIOSH completed approximately 500 indoor air quality investigations and concluded that 34 percent of all sick building syndrome buildings were associated with indoor air contaminants, outdoor air contaminants, building materials, or microbes. Fifty-two percent of the buildings had inadequate ventilation, and 13 percent were “source unknown.”2 See Figure 2.1. It is not clear whether the 13 percent was due to an inability to identify unknown sources or due to typical of›ce building complaints encountered in all of›ce buildings.
