SPOA_Spr_2010:SPOA_Template.qxd
5/5/2010
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Protecting our environment for the future BY ART JOHNSON, CR, WLS, CANSTAR RESTORATIONS
As a facilities manager responsible for maintaining buildings that house our future generations of leaders and workforce, a great deal depends on the decisions you make when it comes to proper cleanup after a building suffers damage. Maintaining a safe, healthy and clean environment is critical to ensure young minds and bodies develop into healthy adults. A number of incidences can occur that may negatively impact this environment and which, as a restoration contractor, we seem to encounter on an almost daily basis. These events must be addressed with an insightful, professional and thorough manner and in a timely fashion. Let's spend a few moments and see why that attention is so important. As night falls, a broken pipe causes water to flow down the hallway, where, during the day, children laugh and sprint to class. If addressed in a timely manner and the danger quickly re-
moved, this should significantly reduce its impact; if not, for every hour and day the moisture remains, bacteria begin to proliferate and mould begins to germinate. If the area previously had a flood that wasn't remediated properly, the mould may spawn from the dormant state from which it was left. With increased numbers of environmentally sensitive young people and teachers attending schools, all of us are required to act more prudently and add additional measures to protect everyone. Even in a freshwater flood situation, after water extraction and the installation of drying equipment, tools like air scrubbers and ultraviolet light air purifying machines, along with containing the areas with poly barrier walls, are integral to the process of revitalizing the school. These measures should become more and more a part of regular water damage scenes to ensure the damage has little or no impact on the precious air quality that must be main-
Garaventa Lifts and Elevators
BC’s Largest Lift and Elevator Showroom Paul Bryan Nav Chahal
www.garaventaBC.com Toll Free: 1 800 565 6636 Manufacturing in BC since 1974 40
Ops Talk • Spring 2010
tained in the occupied areas. If avoiding these measures becomes the norm for simple water damage, we can only imagine the scenario if there is lead paint, asbestos, sewage, or river water involved. Smoke and fire damage is another area that requires special attention in regard to maintaining or re-establishing good indoor air quality. A number of dynamics occur when a fire moves through a building; those factors depend on the type of fire, whether it be slow-burning or smouldering, fast and furious, or pressurized and convectionbased. The way we address fire and smoke damage requires further understanding and different approaches. If a fire smoulders and is then doused with water, the soot particulate will be large due to incomplete combustion, and it will usually disperse throughout the building through the HVAC system or open doorways and settle on most horizontal surfaces. It is usually easier to clean and deodorize as long as it has not gone on for an extended period of time, not a lot of plastics and oil-based products are involved, and an abundance of water was not introduced. However, it is a different story when it comes to a hot, fast-burning fire, where the situation and dynamics are considerably more complicated. As a fire builds momentum, it requires more oxygen and thus creates greater pressurization and convection, thus facilitating the movement of smoke and residue into areas that may appear to be isolated. Pressurization will cause smoke to be forced into wall cavities and into ductwork, whether your HVAC system is running or not, and unless it is addressed, will contribute toward an unhealthy indoor environment for a prolonged period of time. These conditions have had negative effects on the health and welfare of many firefighters
