Healthy Buildings 2017 Europe July 2-5, 2017, Lublin, Poland

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1 Healthy Buildings 2017 Europe July 2-5, 2017, Lublin, Poland Paper ID 0073 ISBN: The reliability of the Finnish M 1 voluntary classification of material emissions has been excellent Esko Kukkonen, MSc. Eng FISIAQ, Finnish Society for indoor Air Quality, Espoo, Finland Corresponding ausum@kolumbus.fi SUMMARY: Emissions from the construction materials to the indoor air have been a serious problem everywhere for the well-being of humans. 20 years ago we found in Finland a new solution to this problem. In 1996 the FISIAQ, The Finnish Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate, and the Building Information Foundation RTS published the M 1 emission classification of building materials. Today more than 3500 different materials have got the M 1 classification and its effect to the quality of the indoor air has been remarkable. The reliability of the tests and also the sensory tests with untrained panel has been controlled and shown to be excellent. KEYWORDS Sensory acceptance, untrained panel, reliability of the sensory tests, classification of the building materials. 1 INTRODUCTION The M 1 classification both the chemical and sensory emissions will be tested in accepted laboratories according published methods. ( ) We had planned the tests to be as simple and cost-effective as possible, but also reliable. The whole procedure and the background have been presented in many congresses and VTT publications and published in the web-pages of RTS. ( ( Tirkkonen Tiina& al), (Helena Järnström & al). The M 1 classification has been very positive to effects to the quality of the indoor air. The classification and its tests have also been updated during these 20 years according to the newest research results and practical experiences, but the principles have been the same. The last updating occurred in 2008 and the new one is just going on this year. In the practice the harmful emissions from the construction materials were only some 10 to 20 % of the previous values before.

2 2 MATERIALS/RESULTS Both chemical and sensory measurements are essential Figure 1. Tested materials and the limits of acceptance. Horizontally the results of sensory acceptance tests and vertically the chemical emissions ( TVOC in mg/ m3). In the figure 1 you can see, that the tested materials are not similar. In many cases the chemical emissions have gone over the accepted values and in many cases the measured sensory emissions have been too intensive to be accepted. In the best cases, accepted ones, both emissions have been under the limits.

3 Figure 2. Sensory test in practice. Untrained panel tests have been cost-effective and reliable The chemical measurements are internationally defined in the standards. The sensory measurements we selected, were not standardized, but in common use already in that time. There were possibilities to choose the trained panel method or untrained panel method. In the trained panel method the panel will gave up its opinion about the intensity of the sensory effect in scale In the untrained panel the opinion was described in the acceptability scale: -1 to +1. In the beginning the size of the untrained panel was first only 5 and when the result was near the limit of the acceptance, these tests were repeated by large panel of 15 members. From the year 2007 we have used only the large panel with size of 15 panelists. The used statistics, basing on use of T- distribution and all other mathematics in the background are presented in ref. ( Tirkkonen Tiina & al) Reassessment shows the reliability This chosen cheaper method, sensory tests with untrained panel, has been according to our experiences and tests reliable enough to our purposes. There is a small, highest about 10 % risk, to make false decision, but the risk is symmetrical - same to both parties, the manufacturer and the classification organization. The feasibility of the method is also confirmed by the uniformity of the re-assessment test results which showed good overall repeatability. The statistical analyses showed that the sensory acceptance is fairly well normally distributed, according to our assumptions. The sensory acceptance met the M1-requirement of +0.1 in ~80% The feasibility of the method is also confirmed by the uniformity of the re-assessment test results which showed good overall repeatability. The statistical analyses showed that the sensory acceptance is fairly well normally distributed, according to our assumptions. The sensory acceptance met the M1-requirement of +0.1 in ~80% of the cases in and in this respect there was no large difference between the panel

4 Fig 3. The distribution of measured acceptability The reliability of the classification and testing systems and the quality of the classified products are verified also by annual sample testing. Four different products, randomly selected by the RTS are tested every year. Also, in the sensory tests, which are basing on untrained panels and considerably small testing groups the reliability of the test has been excellent. During the years nearby all materials has got the same decision fulfillment of the requirements same as in the earlier tests. The sensory test method used in M 1 classification with untrained panel and acceptance scale can so be seen very reliable. The re-classification test results of M1 classified materials performed after 3 to 6 years of 150 randomly selected materials were compared to the original test results to study the assessability of the odour acceptability. The experiences of the method and statistical analyses made with data from over 15 years shows that the sensory assessment method using an untrained panel of 5-15 members is practically feasible, cost effective, and reliable enough to be used as sensory assessment method of building materials for classification purposes. (Helena Järnström & al) 3 CONCLUSIONS The M 1 classification is functioning in practice The M 1 classification has been a success in Finland to avoid unnecessary harmful emissions form the construction materials. The classification is fair and cost-effective and so it has been positively welcomed by the domestic and foreign manufacturers of the materials. Today more than 3500 different construction materials have the M 1 classification in Finland. As a result from this classification the harmful emissions from the construction materials have declined in the practice by a decade. Today the M 1 classification can be used also to control the emissions from the ventilation ducts and other parts of the ventilation system as well as the furniture, which very often is a considerable source of harmful emissions to the indoor air. The newest plans are to broaden the classification also to the cleaning agents and soft furniture, which are a remarkable source of emissions in the practice. (Private update discussions with RTS)

5 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The paper is prepared by the author and the scientific staffs of FISIAQ and The Finnish Building Information Foundation without any external financial support. 5 REFERENCES Björkroth, M. and Kukkonen, E. Measurement of sensory load from ventilation systems by trained and untrained panels. Proceedings of Indoor Air 2002, Monterey USA ISO ISO :2012 Indoor air Part 28: Determination of odour emissions from building products using test chambers. The websites of The Finnish Building Information Foundation. Tirkkonen, Tiina; Saarela, Kristina; Kukkonen, Esko Sensory evaluation method of building materials for labelling purposes. Espoo, VTT Building and Transport. Research Notes; 2262 Helena Järnström; Tiina Tirkkonen; Esko Kukkonen; Kristina Saarela; Jorma Säteri Building material emissions: Positive experiences of sensory evaluation of material emissions using an untrained panel in Finland. Proceedings of Healthy Buildings Brisbane, Australia Private update communications with The Finnish Building Information Foundation..