Coworking space raises overall quality of life and comfort by focusing on better indoor air quality

As a business aiming to provide its occupants and clients a network and chance to build their own communities, The Company, a Singapore-based co-working space, caters to a network of professionals who prefer the open working space conducive to collaboration and free exchange of ideas and business opportunities.

It goes without saying that they envisioned a space that fosters these actions by addressing quality of life and comfort of everyone through indoor air quality and building health and safety.

Indoor air quality in office buildings might not be a topic of strategic business conversations. But with people in the center of The Company’s business, witnessing their discomfort and complaints in their spaces led to the realization that a healthy working environment and breathing clean air equates to business growth.

Challenges:
When it comes to improving indoor air quality and quality of life in their space, The Company identified these key challenges they needed to address:
● Overall discomfort in certain areas because of temperature, limited ventilation and harmful air chemicals that caused drowsiness and feeling of nausea
● Uncomfortable conference rooms and meeting areas that makes it unconducive for its purpose
● Utilization of the open spaces in their entire floor were not optimized – crowding is seen in some areas, while others are empty or unused

Benefits Achieved:
With the introduction of uHoo indoor air quality monitors, The Company was able to successfully address all the above-mentioned challenges.

With uHoo installed in specific areas, they were able to identify particular issues with temperature, carbon dioxide (CO2), airborne chemicals (VOC), and carbon monoxide (CO). Using the air quality data from uHoo, their facility team was able to achieve the following:

Identification and replacement of broken thermostats
uHoo showed different temperature readings compared to the thermostats and this caused overcrowding in some areas since occupants naturally went for spaces that were cooler and more comfortable (21 degrees vs. 24 degrees).
After fixing this problem, The Company was able to optimize space utilization as occupants felt more comfortable to use the different areas once again.

Pinpointing high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2)
uHoo monitored high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) which were causing drowsiness and low energy levels amongst most of the occupants and clients.
This led to fact-based conversations between The Company and their landlord and how to better address ventilation issues for smoother air flow and movement in all areas for improved building health and safety.

Discovery of high and regular exposure to carbon monoxide (CO)
Alarming levels of carbon monoxide (CO), a harmful air chemical, were discovered and identified as the cause for nausea. uHoo also spotted the correlation between CO and temperature decrease in the HVAC systems because the air was being pulled from the building’s car park.

This, similarly, led to more detailed conversations about improving indoor air quality, ventilation and overall building health standards between tenant and landlord

Overall energy savings and better space maintenance
With the replacement of broken thermostats, The Company saw savings on energy. Similarly, with the identification of harmful substances in the air, they were able to take the lead on improving space maintenance and initiate the move towards healthy buildings with their landlord.

Bottomline Result:
uHoo’s indoor air quality devices managed to alert The Company on the current situation of their space and the realization that it is no longer in line with their aim of encouraging collaborations and healthy interactions. As such, they are now well on their way to becoming a cost-efficient, well-maintained and healthy property.