PRINCIPLES AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS OF THE EMISSION CLASSIFICATION OF BUILDING MATERIALS IN FINLAND

Transcription

1 PRINCIPLES AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS OF THE EMISSION CLASSIFICATION OF BUILDING MATERIALS IN FINLAND L Sariola 1* and E Kukkonen 2 1 Building Information Foundation RTS, Finland 2 Finnish Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate, FISIAQ, Finland ABSTRACT The first version of the Emission Classification was developed by the Finnish Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (FiSIAQ) in 1995 as part of Classification of Indoor Climate, Construction, and Finishing Materials. The publication includes measurable target values, cleanliness requirements and emission criteria for building materials. New revised edition was published in The Emission Classification of Building Materials has been the most successful part of the IAQ classification. The first M1-label was granted in 1996 and in February 2005 there were over 850 M1-labelled products from over 110 companies. The largest groups are plastic sheet flooring, paint and vanishes, plasters and leveling agents, mineral wools, gypsum boards and adhesives. The scope of this classification has been extended to the cleanliness classification of air-handling components year It includes ducts, fittings, air and fire dampers and also supply air filters. Results and experiences of this well functioning Emission Classification of Building Materials and air-handling components will be presented. In order to improve the IAQ in real conditions other sources of odours and emissions have to take into consideration. Strong sources of harmful chemicals are furniture and cleaners, waxes and other conditioners used for example for floors. There have been discussions to extend the scope of the Emission Classification. The principles for these new requirements and the criteria of the classification will be presented. It would be better, if the Emission Classification of Construction Materials could be international. The requirements for such system will be proposed in this paper based on the Finnish experiences on the Emission Classification. ACTIONS FOR BETTER IAQ IN FINLAND Good indoor air quality is recognised as an important question of national health and economy in Finland. Good IAQ must however be combined with a good energy economy because of the cold climate. It makes the task more demanding. People spend indoors the majority of their life in Finland. Therefore the houses have to build as a shelter against the hostile climate without undermining the quality of indoor air. The need for building compact and well-insulated houses for the low energy consumption is not always combinable with the needs of healthy indoor air quality. There have been several actions to achieve and maintain healthy and comfortable IAQ at homes, offices and other buildings. As a final goal in building design, good IAQ, must be remembered and taken into account in all phases and details. This takes very important part in: selection of building site and mutual room location thermal insulation of walls and windows sun protection of windows air tightness of the building moisture protection possibilities to maintain the cleanliness well functioning ventilation system. The government, different ministries and also local administration have published a lot of regulations and guidelines to improve the activities for better IAQ. The state has financed remarkable actions to improve technical * Corresponding author ausum@kolumbus.fi 3481

2 design and construction. The private sector has also participated actively in these actions in Finland. Companies have developed better building materials and HVAC-devices. There have been improvements in construction technology and use of buildings. The Finnish Society for Indoor Air Quality, FISIAQ, has been active over 15 years. It has arranged a national seminar of indoor air annually to disseminate the sciences related to IAQ. FISIAQ is also a publisher of a free quarterly magazine of indoor air sciences and technology. It has a leading role in the development process of the Finnish Classification of Indoor Climate, even though the publication is a result of a co-operation of many organisations. THE FINNISH CLASSIFICATION OF INDOOR CLIMATE 2000 The Emission Classification of Building Materials is a part of the Classification of Indoor Climate 2000, which is intended to be used in the design and construction of healthier and more comfortable buildings and their mechanical systems. The first version of the Emission Classification was developed and published by the Finnish Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (FISIAQ) as part of the Classification of Indoor Climate, Construction and Finishing Materials in The work was done on initiative and support of Ministry of the Environment and in close co-operation with different associations of technology, building engineering and architects in Finland. The Classification does not overrule official building codes or interpretations of them. It is a voluntary guide prepared by researchers and professionals. The purpose is to reach building owners, architects, designers, builders and manufacturers of materials and building components achieving a good indoor air quality. The classification includes three parts: 1. The classification of indoor climate gives target and design values for thermal conditions, odour intensity, noise levels, ventilation and indoor air pollutants. 2. Guidelines for design and construction including classification of cleanliness in construction, principles and procedures for the main stages of construction works. 3. The Emission Classification of Building Materials contains target values for odours and emissions of the materials and recommended maximum surface area of materials based on their emissions. Each part of the classification has two or three categories; higher categories to correspond the better indoor air quality and the lower levels to correspond the minimum requirements for the quality according to the official building regulations. The principles and practice of the classification system have adopted and proved in several construction projects. Constructors, building owners and designers have used it as a tool in setting target values for indoor climate and in achieving the goals during construction processes. Especially the first part of the classification concerning the target values of indoor climate is used in various building projects. The second part concerning guidelines for better construction and cleanliness is also adapted. One of the improvements is that HVAC-designers demand to clean the ducts after the manufacturing process and handle those with capped ends on the construction site. The new important requirement is to do a moisture protection plan. BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE EMISSION CLASSIFICATION The Emission Classification of Building Materials has three emission classes. Emission class M1 corresponds to the best quality and emission class M3 includes materials with the highest emission rates. Classified M1-materials have to fulfill the following criteria at the age of 4 weeks: 1. The emission of total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) is below 0.2 mg/m²h 2. The emission of formaldehyde is below 0.05 mg/m²h 3. The emission of ammonia is below 0.03 mg/m²h 4. The emission of carcinogenic compounds is below mg/m²h (does not apply to formaldehyde, IARC 2004) 5. Material is not odorous (dissatisfaction with the odour is below 15%. The result of the test is at least + 0.1). The chemical testing methods are based as much as possible on internationally accepted or used procedures and ISO and CEN standards. TVOC requirements are however complemented with the requirement to identify the 3482

3 most relevant VOC components, 85 % of the highest peaks in the spectrogram. Sensory tests are carried out using normal acceptability scale by untrained sensory panels. The measurement of emissions should be performed when the material is in the final form in which it is used. It is also important that the labelled materials have a product specification presenting possible limitations for the use of the material and also requirements for the environmental conditions where the material is applied and used. A more detailed description of the whole testing and accepting method can be seen on the Web site of RTS (Building Information Foundation). ( The reliability of the whole procedure is laying on the chemical and sensory tests done by the known, skilled and certified, or officially accredited laboratories. The testing methods used in the testing procedure are based on widely used and accepted scientific background, described in many standards and standard monographs. These classification tests are carried on to few test pieces. Therefore the essential part of the classification is a product quality control making the system also more reliable. The quality of classified products is verified also through sample testing. The products to be tested are selected annually by the committee developing and supervising classification work.the common accuracy of the chemical tests will be, according to the references and experiences, about 20 %. The probable error of the sensory tests (for the classification used small two step panels (5/15)) is 10 %. In every case the overall risk of wrong conclusions in accepting and classifying materials seems to be sufficient low and functional for this very practical purpose. The principles of the accuracy calculations are presented in detail in references. Figure 1. The M1 label for building materials Amount of classified products 2005 spring products Figure 2. The growth of M1 classified products in Finland 3483

4 EXPERIENCES AND RESULTS The Classification of Indoor Climate has proven to be well functioning and widely used for nearby 10 years in Finland. The houses falling into the best category S1 have been built widely and good experiences have encouraged continuing the examination of IAQ. One of the examinations concerned houses built with M1 materials and supply air or/and air extract units. The result was that houses built with both units reached the best indoor air quality within half year. The best IAQ was not reached in houses built only with air extract units. Within one year the differences became even. Some extra costs are required for IAQ, but the advantage makes it negligible when comparing for example to Life Cycle costs and especially to the advantages of better IAQ. The costs are though only some percent of the total building costs. Domestic as well as foreign companies have developed new products with lower emissions by using advanced consistency of materials and improved technology in production and production control. When the manufacturers have realized that the costs of the tests and classification are very limited compared with the advantages in marketing products, the threshold to take part into the system have lowered. The most important issue in this process is that the manufacturers and importers of building materials have, during these years, improved the quality of their products so that the measured harmful emissions have lowered drastically. Similar development has also been seen in the measured sensory emissions of classified materials and products. FUTURE PLANS TO DEVELOP THE FINNISH EMISSION CLASSIFICATION The widening of the Emission Classification of Building Materials has been seen as a necessity, because IAQ problems related to emissions have arisen in the last few years. There are also emission problems with furniture; tables, bookcase, chairs, cabinets and closets. These have high emission rates instantly after manufacturing due to the volatile chemicals used in the painting or lacquering. Furniture has been kept stored normally in a tight wrap before transportation and installation and so the emissions have not been declined before the installation. To decrease the harmful emissions to the accepted level will take months in many cases. Sometimes the sufficient solution has been that the new furniture has kept unwrapped and aired separately for some weeks or months before the installation to the permanent place. The other common sources of high level chemical impurities come from cleaning chemicals, waxes and other treatment substances used in the rooms. The emissions from the substances will normally decay in some days or weeks, but because the treatment will be repeated quite often, the levels of the harmful chemicals will often be too high. The emission classification of furniture and chemicals is now seen as a task for the Finnish Emission Classification. The definitions of classification criteria are not easy in these cases due to the special consistency of the products. The size of furniture are often, nearby normally, too big for the normal testing chambers. The tests by other methods, e.g. small FLEC- cells are not representative enough due to the complicated structure of the furniture and used amount of materials. The test chamber must be big enough for furniture to be tested. The chemicals used for cleaning, waxing or other treatment of the floor and other surfaces cannot be classified using same requirements as the normal building materials. Products are used often weekly or monthly, and the emission rates must decline therefore very quickly to the acceptance level. The declining period of 28 days used for normal building materials is not acceptable. It is said that the products can be reliably accepted only if the tests are done after 3 days. The emission rates should decline in this time below the acceptance level used for building materials. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS The Finnish classification of IAQ and building materials has proven to be a well functioning system. It has shown that private voluntary actions by the branch itself can essentially help in improving IAQ of buildings. Government co-operation and support has proven to be important and unnecessary regulations have avoided. The value of good IAQ will be even more emphasised when rewriting the IAQ quality requirements in the Finnish Building Code. The harmful emissions have been reduced now by voluntary means, especially because of the classification. The Harmonization of Indoor Material Emission measurements will strengthen the need for the improvement. The goal is to have a similar classification system functioning internationally. The manufacturers of the building materials and components would be then still more inclined to improve and test their products. The first step here is the international acceptance and comparability of the test methods for building product emissions. The 3484

5 international standardization organizations are in important role in activating and directing development projects of internationally accepted methods for chemical and sensory tests. Other means of international cooperation developing common requirements for the harmful emissions are also needed. The markets of construction materials are globalized so the same problems are faced in all countries. We can see from the Finnish experiences that the requirements of a functioning and reliable emission classification system are following: 1. The classification system must be open to all manufacturers, domestic as well as foreign firms 2. The requirements for emission levels must be harmonized with the requirements of IAQ and they must be open, published and adjusted to each different group of materials. 3. The requirements must concentrate on the most essential harmful emissions. 4. The costs of the classification must be reasonable low. 5. The emission tests must be based on international standards or other comparable known methods. Chemical tests must be supplemented by sensory tests. 6. The quality control of the production must be functioning and controlled. There must be possibilities for verification tests. REFERENCES: Björkroth M., Seppänen O., Säteri J., Neuvonen P., Pasanen P. and Railio J. (2002): Labelling system for clean ventilation systems. Proceedings of Indoor Air 2002, Monterey, USA Björkroth M. and Kukkonen E.:Measurement of sensory load from ventilation systems by trained and untrained panels. Proceedings of Indoor Air 2002, Monterey, USA ECA (1997): European Collaborative Action Indoor Air Quality and Its Impact on Man. Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC) in Indoor Air Quality Investigations, Report No 19, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. ECA (1999): European Collaborative Action Indoor Air Quality and Its Impact on Man. Sensory Evaluation of Indoor Air Quality, Report No 20, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities FISIAQ( 2001). Classification of indoor climate 2000, Target values, design guidance and product requirements., FISIAQ Publication 55 Kefalopoulos S & al. Harmonization of indoor material labeling systems in EU- a critical review of existing labeling systems. Proceedings of Healthy Buildings 2003, Singapore Kukkonen E., Saarela K. and Neuvonen P.: Experiences from the emission classification of building materials in Finland. Proceedings of Indoor Air 2002, Monterey, USA Kukkonen E., Principles, experiences and new developments of the emission classification of building materials in Finland, Proceedings of Healthy Buildings conference 2003, Singapore Neuvonen P. 2000, The classification of finishing materials, Proceedings of HB 2000 Espoo Finland RTS Protocol for Testing of Building Materials. Building Information Foundation RTS Finland 2001 See also Saarela K. Emissions from construction materials. Results from the National Healthy Building Programme. Proceedings of Healthy Buildings 2003, Singapore CEN ENV 13419, Building products- Determination of the emission of volatile organic compounds. Part 1 Emission test chamber method. Part 3 Procedure for sampling, storage and preparation of test specimen. ISO/ DIS Indoor Air part 6. Determination of volatile organic compounds in indoor air chamber on TENAX TA, thermal desorption and gas-chromatography MSP/FID. 3485