ASHRAE has published a new version of their standard governing ventilation requirements to maintain proper IAQ in buildings. The new ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62.1-2016, Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality standard clarifies limits for environmental tobacco smoke exposure and offers updated guidelines for operations and maintenance practices. Additionally, multifamily residential facilities are removed from coverage under the 2016 version of the standard and are now covered under 62.2.
The 2016 standard revises the definition of “environmental tobacco smoke” to include the vapor from electronic cigarettes and smoke from cannabis, as well as updating the Indoor Air Quality Procedure that is used to determine minimum ventilation rates to be more comprehensive for occupant health.
The standard also takes advancing occupancy sensor technology into account, reducing the amount of necessary ventilation in facilities as long as occupancy is not detected and provided that the sensor works to resume normal ventilation when the space is in use.
