Sick Building Syndrome

I am an employee of the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Center. It's a new building campus located at 1145 Carling Ave. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It's the first hospital of it's kind in Ontario, privately owned by the consortium of companies that built it and operated as a profit center for the public use ( a P3 Hospital ) . The building was occupied Oct 29/06 while still under construction and as of this date is still under construction. The old buildings contained asbestos, black mould, etc... and we slowly demolished after we moved into the new building. Many people complained about dust fallout in the new building and sewer smells (the main sewer pipe was ruptured during the demolition of the old buildings). As of this date sewer gas smells still persist in the main entrance and ground floor of the tower. Many people have had eye, lung and skin Irritation which is most likely due to airborne outgassing of materials used in the construction and or cleaning agents, etc....

To date this is still a problem , although somewhat diminished but still sufficient to affect chemically sensitive people so their health is affected.

An air particulate matter test was done and fallout quantified but not Identified, but we all know it was because of asbestos abatement problems. A chemical air quality test was done which showed dozens of Volatile Organic Compounds. The worst levels measured slightly exceeded the Canadian acceptable levels 1100 micrograms per cubic meter. Strange that the US and Australian standards are set at 500 micrograms and the Europeen standards are 200 micrograms per cubic meter. I have to wonder why the Canadian govt allows our exposure to be 5 times higher than the Europeen levels .

This is a BIG problem that has not been addressed and who knows If even 200 micrograms per cubic meter with long term exposure is safe enough.

A victim of the system.......

I've encountered just 2 instances of foul odor being traced back to an air handler unit. There is no amount of cleaning or disinfecting that "solves" the problem, it only temporarily abates, but then returns.

Had to rip out the air handler on one job and the unit and entire duct system on another but thank God they weren't my original installations. Both places smelled like a dirty sneaker or something worse. They were my personal experiences.

As an HVAC designer, I definitely dread the reports of sick building syndrome, "please don't let it be one of my systems".

Buildings where people get sick often require a team of real "detectives" to scour all "the usual suspects" then look further into more obscure possibilities.

If it's not real bad, then a lot of ventilation air helps greatly..."the solution to pollution is dilution" as they say....

WE HAVE AN OFFICE BUILDING ATTACHED TO A STEEL FABRICATION SHOP WITH LOTS OF GALVANIZATION EVEN THOUGH WE LIVE/WORK IN THE COUNTRY THE AIR IN OUR OFFICE WAS BAD ENOUGH FOR EMPLOYEES TO TURN THE AIRHANDLER OFF COMPLETELY. AFTER MONTHS LIKE THIS I FINALLY CONVINCED EVERYONE THAT SOME AIR (O2) IS NECESSARY FOR LIFE BUT NOW THAT WEVE CHANGED FILTERS AND THE NEW CONTROLLER GIVES US LOTS OF NEW (SOME IS FRESH) AIR CIRCULATING STEADILY THERE IS STILL SOMETHING THAT CAUSES US TO SPIT UP OR CLEAR OUR THROATS CONSTANTLY WHICH WE DONT DO ON WEEKENDS OR HOLIDAYS -LIKE THE 10 DAYS THAT JUST PASSED. SURE ITS JUST LIKELY WELDING FUMES BUT IS THERE A TEST FOR RADON GAS ETC THAT COULD BE PERFORMED?