The term “sick building syndrome” is used so commonly these days that you might hear it just referred to as “SBS.” A building is considered to be “sick” when occupants experience acute health and comfort effects, most likely resulting from poor indoor air quality. The specific cause of these effects must be unknown, but the general discomfort is shared by multiple occupants of the building (a “building related illness,” or BRI, occurs when the illness is diagnosable and the cause can be attributed directly to airborne building contaminants).

Sick building syndrome has various causes that result in the degradation of indoor air quality. A building may have inadequate ventilation that does not efficiently dilute or remove body odors. Volatile organic compounds may be emitted by common indoor sources, such as cleaning agents, pesticides, copy machines, carpeting, upholstery, and adhesives. Chemical contaminants from outdoors may come from building exhaust, plumbing vents, and automobile exhaust and other products of combustion. The final ingredients for a sick building are biological contaminants: pollen, bacteria, and mold.

It is important to note that while asbestos and radon will make a building occupant sick over time, they are not included as sick building syndrome contaminants because they cause only long-term, but not immediate, health effects.

By definition, the symptoms of sick building syndrome are widely varied, inconsistent, and not specifically diagnosable. They include over 50 possible symptoms, including headaches, eye irritation, sore throat, runny nose, dizziness, nausea, fatigue, heightened asthma, and symptoms resembling irritable bowel syndrome.

Sick building syndrome is not easily dealt with since it is usually the result of multiple airborne contaminants caused by multiple problems in the building’s ventilation. For this reason, it is often dealt with by boosting the turnover rate of fresh air exchange with the outside air. However, this may be only a temporary fix since it does not correct the problems that originally made the building sick.

Tagged as: chemical contaminants, health effects, inadequate ventilation, Indoor Air Quality, mold, mold remediation, rapid mold growth, runny nose, savvy investors, sick building, sick building syndrome, volatile organic compounds