Ventilation is of utmost importance in a building. Not only is it crucial to achieving a healthy and productive indoor environment, the amount of energy it consumes can be considerable. Insufficient ventilation degrades an indoor environment, while excessive ventilation wastes energy. Sufficient ventilation is a necessary, but incomplete, requirement for the achievement of good indoor-air quality (IAQ). One component of a well-working ventilation system is the delivery of enough outdoor air (OA) to dilute and remove the air contaminants generated in a space. These air contaminants include those generated by people (bioeffluents) and their activities and any off-gassing from furnishings. The resulting concentrations from these sources are related. For instance, one can infer that if a ventilation system has not been operating long enough to purge bioeffluents from the previous day's occupancy, it also has not been operating long enough to purge air contaminants off-gassed from furnishings because off-gassing continued overnight.
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