INDOOR AIR QUALITY OF PLACES OF WORSHIP IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Good Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) enhances occupant health, comfort and workplace productivity. The outbreak of highly communicable diseases has revealed the health risk of people interacting in a high-density environment such as the places of worship. Till now, IAQ of most religious places has not been extensively researched on as focus has been placed on residential and commercial buildings. In this study, occupant responses and indoor environment characteristics were recorded and compared among one mechanically ventilated (Church), one semi-mechanically ventilated (Hindu Temple) and one naturally ventilated (Chinese temple) worship places. In the three selected places of worship, IAQ audit involving experiments were conducted to measure the quantities of indoor air parameters over few hours at different occupancy levels. It was found that the common IAQ issues in naturally ventilated premises were warm temperature levels and poor ventilation. In air-conditioned premises, alarming levels of carbon dioxide was a great concern. The questionnaires showed that the common symptoms faced by both the staff members and visitors of the religious places are irritation of eyes, blocked/runny nose and headaches. However, these respondents constitute a small percentage of the occupants. Most respondents were satisfied with the IAQ of these religious places. In conclusion, the ventilation and filtering of air in the air-conditioned premises, amount of air exchange and cooling of air in naturally ventilated premises are essential to maintain good environmental conditions for the occupants.