LSU Football Coach Les Miles and Indoor Air Quality – Both Are Under Appreciated

What do Les Miles and Indoor Air Quality Have in Common?

In today’s Baton Rouge Advocate, Scott Rabalais wrote an article telling Les Miles to take the Michigan head football coaching job (if Michigan makes the offer).

I’m not a sports writer or accomplished football analyst, and I’m not going to pretend to be either. But the numbers for Les Miles are pretty impressive. Miles is 103-28 in 10 seasons, with a national championship and two Southeastern Conference titles, having played for one more of each. LSU has been in a bowl every year and finished unranked just once (stats from the story).

For someone who remembers all too well the years where LSU didn’t have such a great football team, I’m pretty happy with the last 10 seasons and current state of LSU’s football program.

Having said that, some of Miles’ coaching decisions have driven me absolutely nuts. We’ve had our share of bizarre plays and last second drama. Sure, we could have won more, but we certainly could have lost a lot more. And there’s a certain SEC team with a former LSU head coach that I’d like to see us beat every time. I don’t want Les Miles to leave, but I couldn’t blame him if he did.

But isn’t that part of being a sports fan? I’d say the best teams with the most highly regarded coaches or managers sometimes drive their fans crazy. Or if you’re a Chicago Cubs fan like me, you ask yourself at least once a day why you still have hope for the Cubs, and even draft an internal short list of teams to support.

I agree that Les Miles is under appreciated. And if the Les Miles haters get their wish – I have to wonder what coach could make them happy.

Are you under appreciated?

This ties in to an under appreciated environmental consideration for our buildings – indoor air quality and quantity. If you’re involved in providing good indoor air quality, I bet you’re under appreciated too.

If you’ve designed, constructed, or managed a building of any type, at some point the indoor air quality (and quantity) has probably driven you up a wall. How many of your building’s occupants call to tell you how great the indoor air quality is in their workspace? I bet I have a pretty good idea – probably the same number of LSU football fans who’ve called Les Miles to congratulate him on his successes since January 2008.

Providing good indoor air quality (IAQ) is a constant battle for building designers, contractors, and owners/managers. And the difficulty in successfully providing good indoor air quality is greatly underestimated and under appreciated.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has considerable data on indoor air quality. Early indoor air quality research in the U.S. public and commercial office buildings focused on buildings whose occupants had significant public health complaints. Since baseline information from typical buildings was sparse, no reference existed with which to compare the so-called “sick” buildings. To fill this data gap, EPA conducted the Building Assessment Survey and Evaluation (BASE) Study of public and commercial office buildings across the U.S.

The BASE Study covered three major areas:

1. Environmental and comfort measurements

2. Building and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems characterization

3. Building occupant demographics, symptoms, and perceptions

The study collected indoor air quality data from 100 randomly selected public and commercial office buildings in 10 climatic regions in 37 cities and 25 states.

Rather than focus on the pages (and pages, and pages) of data, here are some interesting findings from the study:

• There was a lack of system design information available at many BASE buildings. For example, design minimum outdoor airflows were available for only about one-half of the BASE study space air handlers.

• Available design data confirmed some common expectations. For example, as might be expected based on thermal load conditions, design supply airflow rates were about 1 cubic foot per minute (cfm) per square foot of office floor area. Ventilation systems were designed for about ten to twenty percent minimum outdoor air relative to the total supply airflow, on average.

• The average per person outdoor air ventilation rate for all BASE buildings was higher than what might be expected, due primarily due to high outdoor air fractions, or relative to minimum, and actual occupancy being on average slightly less than eighty percent of the design occupancy.

• Many study spaces had ventilation rates at or below the ASHRAE Standard 62-2001 recommendation of 20 cfm per person for offices. About seventeen percent of the BASE ventilation measurements were less than 20 cfm per person.

• Many systems had measured airflows significantly different from design values. About 40 percent of the systems with design data available had measured outdoor airflows less than design. Furthermore, forty-four percent of buildings reported not performing HVAC testing and balancing. These results stress the importance of commissioning for new buildings prior to occupancy, and periodic re-commissioning of existing buildings, to ensure that buildings and systems are operating in a manner consistent with the design intent.

• About twenty percent of air handlers did not have direct measurements of outdoor airflow, usually due to access and physical space limitations. In these cases, outdoor airflow was based on the difference between supply and recirculation airflows. Access to intakes and ductwork for airflow measurements is an important design consideration.

So at least during the time of study, EPA determined that little or no design data was available, ventilation rates varied, many buildings didn’t deliver adequate ventilation, HVAC systems didn’t perform as designed, and verification of flow rates was problematic at best due to HVAC system layout.

In fact, when we work on indoor air quality or mold and moisture projects, we fully expect to find HVAC systems that don’t perform as originally designed, have little or no available hard data, and nonexistent (or inadequate) test and balance data. Many times we find a lack of understanding about how the building’s HVAC interacts with other (seemingly) unrelated building components, such as the building enclosure.

If you’re having HVAC system and indoor air quality problems, what can you do? Do you have a game plan?

First, take a step back and look at the recurring HVAC and IAQ problems you have in your building. Determine your criteria for successful resolution. We call this developing the Owner’s Project Requirements (OPR) you might call it your indoor air quality game plan.

Second, find and engage professionals with experience in evaluating HVAC systems and buildings like yours. Communicate your OPR (or maybe the professionals help you develop the OPR).

Third, start working the problem and achieve your OPR. Don’t give up.

Do you need help developing your OPR or in solving HVAC and indoor air quality problems?

If so, please call or email me.

It may be that if you have a game plan and let your building occupants know about it, you’ll be appreciated, rather than unappreciated like Les Miles.

And Les, if you somehow end up reading this, I hope you stay.

Stay persistent, my friends.