Air Quality Matters

This week, we sit down with Bill McQuade, outgoing President of ASHRAE, to explore a question that fundamentally challenges how we think about progress in the built environment: What if the single biggest barrier to transforming buildings isn't our lack of technical knowledge—but our failure to put human health and wellbeing at the centre of every design, maintenance, and policy decision we make?

So a reflective conversation in many respects. A look at the year gone, but also a forward looking one full of optimism with a good dose of reality. He's put some big ideas forward this year. So a great opportunity to chat about these and what's next.

Key Topics Discussed:

Designing for Life: The IEQ Mandate: Post pandemic, manufacturers had already developed air cleaning and IEQ products, but there was no demand for them. We reverted back to bad behaviors almost immediately. Bill wanted to codify those lessons learned and make sure indoor environmental quality doesn't get buried again in economic calculations. We build buildings for people, not for pretty plaques on the wall. We've done a great job on energy efficiency and carbon emission reductions. But we haven't focused on making buildings excellent from an indoor environmental quality standpoint. That's about the people in the building, not the building itself.

The Five Pillars of IEQ: Air quality, thermal comfort, acoustics, lighting, and water quality. Water quality doesn't get enough attention. We assume the water coming into our buildings is safe and clean. It's not. The incidence of waterborne disease has continued to increase almost exponentially. Aging infrastructure, changes from chlorine to chloramines, and reduced water use in buildings without downsizing piping means water stays in pipes longer. Water age has been shown to be tied to increased incidence of waterborne disease because water spends more time in contact with biofilms. Without performance testing, these issues would never be found.

The Center of Excellence for Indoor Environmental Quality: One of the first projects is developing a comprehensive IEQ standard that could be referenced in code or regulation.

Existing Buildings Are the Real Challenge: New buildings are easy. We have the tools and approaches. Existing buildings are the challenge. There are very basic things we can do from an operational and maintenance standpoint that can make a big difference without infrastructure upgrades. But there's a real lack of knowledge by building operators and maintainers.

Performance, Validation, and Accountability: AI is going to take building controls to a whole new level where buildings can adapt to changes in occupancy, notice when it's off its baseline, and alert you. Fault detection has been talked about for years, but AI will identify failures before they become faults. Low cost sensors for CO2, VOCs, water quality, acoustics, and lighting paired with AI will give accountability. If you're made aware things aren't right and you don't do anything, that's on you.

GUEST:

Bill McQuade

Outgoing President, ASHRAE | Global Vice President of Government Affairs and Sustainability, Baltimore Air Coil Company

https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-mcquade-a54b749/

ASHRAE https://www.ashrae.org/

The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with

Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/

Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Lindab (https://www.lindab.ie/) - S&P UK (https://www.solerpalau.com/en-uk/)

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) - Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) - Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/) - iE Electronics (https://www.eielectronics.ie/) and iAir Group (https://iair-group.com/)

Zehnder https://www.zehndergroup.com/en

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction: Meeting ASHRAE's Outgoing President Bill McQuade
00:02:19 Data Centers: The Energy and Infrastructure Challenge
00:13:23 Designing for Life: The Indoor Environmental Quality Mission
00:16:43 The Five Pillars: Air Quality, Thermal Comfort, Acoustics, Lighting, and Water
00:24:40 The Center of Excellence for Indoor Environmental Quality
00:27:19 The Scale of Complexity: From Science to Practical Implementation
00:36:08 Beyond Capital Investment: Health Outcomes and Societal Costs
00:40:40 Measuring Success: Feedback Loops and Performance Validation
01:02:14 Global Perspectives: Lessons from Traveling the World
01:23:22 The Future: AI, Innovation, and the Workforce Challenge

This week, we dive into a groundbreaking paper published in the Journal of Energy and Buildings titled A Methodology for Evaluating the Effects of Personalized Environmental Control Systems (PECs) on Building Whole Life Carbon CO2 Emissions, to explore a question that fundamentally challenges how we think about building design and decarbonisation: What if the single biggest opportunity to slash carbon emissions in buildings isn't just improving central HVAC systems—but radically downsizing them by giving occupants personalised control over their immediate thermal environment?

For decades, we've conditioned entire office volumes to a uniform temperature, chasing an average comfort level that doesn't actually exist for individuals. Half the room wears sweaters while the other half sweats. It's energy intensive, carbon intensive, and ironically, nobody is truly comfortable. Personalized Environmental Control Systems (PEX)—think heated chairs, desk fans, local diffusers—flip this model. By controlling the microenvironment around each occupant, we can relax ambient set points, reduce operational energy, and potentially downsize massive central equipment. But here's the blind spot this paper addresses for the first time: what about whole life carbon?

Key Topics Discussed:

The Power Draw Problem: PEX devices with moderate corrective capacity (offsetting set points by 2 to 4 degrees) and low maximum power use (70 watts or less) achieve the best environmental balance. High capacity PEX drawing 80 to 100 watts start dumping heat back into the space, creating internal heat gain that puts load back onto the central cooling system, wiping out energy savings. If you oversize the personal devices, you lose.

The Silent Killer: Standby Power: Most PEX studies completely ignore standby power. But in the real world, devices sit plugged in, drawing a trickle of power even when nobody is at the desk. The authors modelled a modest 5 watt standby draw per unit. For low capacity PEX like simple desk fans, that 5 watt standby completely wiped out operational energy savings. Why? Because the central system is already efficient enough to handle mild conditions, meaning the PEX spends massive hours on standby, leaking energy during idle time. Product developers must design ultra low power systems with zero standby draw.

The Courage to Downsize: The massive carbon savings are locked in on day one when designers physically downsize the central HVAC infrastructure. Smaller air handling units, smaller chillers, smaller duct diameters, reduced suspended ceiling heights, lower floor to floor heights. These embodied carbon savings are permanent and non negotiable. Standby power cannot erase them. But if you install PEX and still install a massive full size central VAV system just in case, you're missing the point and leaving massive carbon savings on the table.

A methodology for evaluating the effects of personalized environmental control systems (PECS) on building whole-life CO2 emissions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2026.117565

The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with

Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/

Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Lindab (https://www.lindab.ie/) - S&P UK (https://www.solerpalau.com/en-uk/)

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) - Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) - Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/) - iE Electronics (https://www.eielectronics.ie/) iAir Group (https://iair-group.com/)

and Zehnder Group https://www.zehndergroup.com/en

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction: The One Take Format and Personalized Environmental Control
00:01:11 The Dumb HVAC Problem: Why We Condition Entire Rooms for Nobody
00:01:39 The PEX Solution: Localized Control and Relaxed Ambient Temperatures
00:02:24 The Blind Spot: What About Whole Life Carbon?
00:03:08 The Methodology: Copenhagen Office Building Simulation and LCA
00:03:56 Retrofit Scenario Results: 50% Energy Reduction Without Physical Changes
00:04:39 Design Scenario Magic: Downsizing Central Systems for Massive Carbon Savings
00:05:53 The Catch: Maximum Power Draw and the Standby Power Silent Killer
00:07:45 The Embodied Carbon Lock-In: Why Design Scenarios Still Win
00:08:30 The So What: Whole Life Thinking and the Future of Human-Centric Buildings

This week, we sit down with Professor Lidia Morawska, one of the world's leading voices in air quality science and airborne infection transmission, to explore a question that fundamentally challenges how we think about progress in indoor air quality: What if the single biggest barrier to transforming the built environment isn't our lack of scientific knowledge—but our inability to convert public health crises into sustained political action before society forgets the urgency?

Key Topics Discussed:

The Open Letter That Changed Everything: On the last Saturday of March 2020, the WHO Director General tweeted that COVID-19 was not airborne. Within three days, Lidia organized 36 leading scientists to write to the WHO. Within an hour of sending the letter, Geneva called. The conversation was defensive, not collaborative. It took three months of strategic media engagement and publication in a top journal before the WHO acknowledged airborne transmission the next day.

The P-Block Blueprint: Lidia's team is transforming an existing building at Queensland University of Technology into the first building in the world to meet proposed indoor air quality standards. The project monitors PM2.5, carbon monoxide (in combustion spaces), and CO2 as a proxy for infection transmission and ventilation effectiveness. An AI optimisation platform will automatically instruct building management systems to balance indoor air quality, thermal comfort, and energy efficiency without human intervention.

GUEST:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lidia-morawska-5461519/

https://www.indoorair2026.org/

The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with

Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/

Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Lindab (https://www.lindab.ie/) - S&P UK (https://www.solerpalau.com/en-uk/)

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) - Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) - Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/) - iE Electronics (https://www.eielectronics.ie/) and iAir Group (https://iair-group.com/)

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction: Meeting Lydia Mirowska and the Prime Minister's Prize for Science
00:02:24 The Shifting Audience: From Ignored Experts to Listened-To Advocates
00:04:38 Historical Patterns: When Events Force Air Quality Into Public Consciousness
00:07:53 The Visibility Problem: Why Indoor Air Quality Remains Abstract and Invisible
00:08:38 Leveraging Crisis Moments: The Strategy of Incremental Regulatory Progress
00:10:10 Beyond Pandemics: The Everyday Burden of Respiratory Infections and Air Pollution
00:11:34 Country by Country: Understanding Different Regulatory Systems and Pathways
00:13:38 Working With Politicians: Solutions Not Just Problems
00:19:03 The Scale of Change: Learning From Water Infrastructure History
00:21:09 The Cost of Inaction: Why Not Fixing Air Quality Is More Expensive
00:22:22 The Low-Cost Sensor Revolution: Making Air Quality Visible for Everyone
00:26:58 The Advocacy Balance: When Passion Meets Complexity
00:29:27 The Simplicity Paradox: Complex Science But Straightforward Building Solutions
00:32:33 From Individual Responsibility to Building Standards: The Water Analogy
00:34:03 Agency and Automation: Balancing Control With Proper Building Performance
00:36:33 Education Gap: Why Air Quality Isn't in School Curriculum or Medical Textbooks
00:37:41 Air Quality as the Perfect Teaching Subject: Engaging Every Student
00:39:25 The Medical Community Gap: When Doctors Never Ask About Home Environment
00:43:54 The Open Letter to WHO: How 36 Scientists Changed Global Pandemic Response
00:51:44 The Airborne Battle: Science Versus Institutional Resistance at WHO
00:53:49 Understanding WHO's Position: Medical Terminology and Institutional Fear
01:00:23 The MPOX Response: Why We're Still Hesitant on Airborne Transmission
01:06:23 P-Block Project: Building the World's First Indoor Air Quality Standard Building
01:09:04 The Three-Pollutant Standard: PM2.5, Carbon Monoxide, and CO2 as Proxy
01:12:07 The Sensor Readiness Question: Why These Pollutants and Not Others
01:12:48 The PM2.5 Debate: Composition Complexity Versus Epidemiological Consistency
01:20:53 The VOC Conundrum: Source Control Over Measurement
01:23:16 The Radon Scandal: When Science Is Resolved But Nothing Changes
01:29:16 The Ireland Radon Crisis: One in Five Homes Above Threshold in Red Zones
01:34:28 Closing Vision: From Advocacy to Implementation in Five Years

This week, we dive into a groundbreaking study from Dublin City University published in the Journal of Housing Studies titled Transforming Social Housing: Moving Beyond Tenant Blame to Address Systemic Indoor Environmental Quality Challenges for Healthy Homes in Ireland, to explore a question that fundamentally challenges how we think about mould and dampness in social housing: What if the single biggest barrier to fixing persistent moisture problems in social housing isn't tenant behaviour—but a broken system that uses lifestyle blame to mask decades of infrastructure failure, reactive maintenance, and profound environmental injustice?

For decades, when a tenant reports mould, the default response from landlords and housing bodies has been to point the finger squarely at the tenant's lifestyle. Clean it down, stop drying your washing on the radiators, put lids on your pots when cooking, and open the windows more. The implication is always that the tenant is causing the problem. This blame centric narrative was blown wide open in the UK following the tragic death of two year old Awaab Ishak in 2020, whose death was directly linked to severe mould in his family's social housing flat. But as the authors of this paper point out, a similar shift in understanding hasn't taken root everywhere, including in Ireland.

Key Topics Discussed:

The Infrastructure Issue: Many moisture problems are baked right into the physical infrastructure due to a legacy of outdated building regulations and past policy failures. Social homes built in the 1950s were designed with built in open fireplaces which helped ventilate the rooms. But to comply with modern European energy efficiency directives, new regulations required these fireplaces be sealed up. When you seal up the primary ventilation route and then introduce modern moisture generating appliances like dishwashers, you create a trap for dampness. Homes built during the Celtic Tiger boom led to rapid construction at the expense of quality, resulting in widespread cold bridging and thermal weak spots.

The Maintenance Issue: If buildings are flawed, the maintenance regimes designed to fix them are often just as broken. A lot of maintenance in the social housing sector operates on a responsive repairs model. You basically wait until a tenant reports a problem, and by that point, the issue has likely deteriorated significantly. One resident shared a heartbreaking story of developing chronic respiratory infections from persistent mould, despite keeping their windows open all day in the freezing cold. The landlords knew about a structural fault in the building's basement, yet the repairs remained entirely superficial.

The Lifestyle Myth and the Breakdown of Trust: Yes, human behaviour impacts indoor air quality. Drying clothes on radiators or blocking vents will absolutely trigger mould growth. But why are tenants doing this? These practices are entirely understandable when you live in a cold, rainy climate and you're struggling to heat your home. It's a symptom of fuel poverty and poor building design, not malicious intent. The real issue is a profound breakdown in communication and trust between tenants and landlords. When you sever that personal connection, the system becomes rigid and landlords default to blame centric communications.

Transforming social housing: moving beyond tenant blame to address systemic indoor environmental quality (IEQ) challenges for healthy homes in Ireland https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2026.2653612

The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with

Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/

Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Lindab (https://www.lindab.ie/)

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) - Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/)

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction: The One Take Format and the Systemic Housing Crisis
00:01:01 The Tenant Blame Narrative: Why Lifestyle Excuses Mask Real Problems
00:02:31 The Research Approach: 28 Stakeholder Voices on Environmental Justice
00:03:19 Theme One: The Infrastructure Crisis—When Buildings Are Built to Fail
00:04:41 Flying Blind: The Data Gap in Irish Housing Quality
00:05:01 Theme Two: The Maintenance Failure—Reactive Systems and Fragmented Policies
00:06:28 Theme Three: The Lifestyle Myth and the Breakdown of Trust
00:07:48 The Knowledge Gap: When New Technology Meets No Training
00:08:39 The Paradigm Shift: From Blame to Partnership in Social Housing
00:09:20 Closing Thoughts: Environmental Justice and the Path to Healthy Homes

This week, we dive into a thought-provoking commentary published in the Journal of Health Security titled Catch Me If You Can: Reducing Infectious Disease Through Better Indoor Air Quality and Bio Surveillance, to explore a question that fundamentally challenges how we think about protecting public health: What if the single biggest barrier to preventing the next pandemic isn't our lack of scientific knowledge about airborne pathogens—but the boom and bust cycle of funding that prevents us from building the intelligent, integrated biosurveillance systems our buildings desperately need?

The air circulating within our indoor environments is essentially a microscopic soup containing potentially pathogenic bacteria, fungi, mould, and viruses. COVID-19 forced us to radically rethink how indoor air quality mitigates disease transmission. But the authors argue that to truly protect critical building infrastructure, we have to integrate our existing HVAC systems with active biosurveillance—meaning continuous detection of environmental flora and microbes.

Key Topics Discussed:

The Unintended Consequence of Energy Savings: Legionella, the bacteria responsible for Legionnaires disease, loves warm, stagnant water. To save energy, many building operators have lowered their water heat temperatures. By dropping those temperatures down to between 25 and 45 degrees, they inadvertently created the perfect conditions for this bacteria to proliferate. Post COVID, as buildings reopened, stagnant water sitting in pipes was suddenly aerosolized through taps and showers, leading to increased Legionella outbreaks. When we pull one lever in a building like energy efficiency, we can inadvertently create a massive public health hazard.

The Needle in a Haystack: The US government's BioWatch program, created after the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, deployed air monitoring units to detect intentional biological threats. In practice, it's incredibly clunky. The systems require actual human beings to manually retrieve samples and carry them to the lab. The tests rely on prior research, meaning the system is only looking for threats it has been programmed to find. If a brand new or engineered pathogen is floating through the air, the system might completely miss it.

Schools as Petri Dishes: Viral respiratory pathogens spread like wildfires in schools due to high occupancy density and prolonged indoor exposure. We already know how to fix this. Improving ventilation, adding HEPA filtration, and monitoring carbon dioxide significantly reduces pathogen exposure. In one trial across Los Angeles unified school districts, simply adding portable HEPA filters to classrooms reduced PM 2.5 concentrations by up to 82%. The problem is not the lack of knowledge. It's a lack of resources.

The Flaws in Our Math: We use sophisticated risk assessment models like the Wells Riley model to predict the probability of infection based on room size, ventilation rates, exposure time, and filter efficiency. These models are incredibly useful, but they have glaring blind spots. They rely heavily on steady state assumptions, assuming occupancy, ventilation rates, and pathogen shedding remain constant. They also assume that the air in a room mixes perfectly. To get this right, we need real time sensor data integrated with building controls to dynamically adjust ventilation based on actual conditions.

Catch Me if You Can: Reducing Infectious Disease Through Better Indoor Air Quality and Biosurveillance (https://doi.org/10.1177/23265094261418816)

The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with

Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/

Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Lindab (https://www.lindab.ie/)

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) - Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/)

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction: The One Take Format and the Microscopic Soup We Breathe
00:01:44 The Funding Crisis: Boom and Bust Cycles in Biodefense Research
00:02:34 Case One: Energy Savings vs Legionella—The Unintended Consequence
00:03:41 Case Two: The BioWatch Program—Finding a Needle in a Haystack
00:04:49 Case Three: Schools as Petri Dishes—The Resource Gap
00:05:43 Case Four: The Flaws in Our Math—When Models Meet Reality
00:06:40 The Vicious Cycle: From Reaction to Prevention
00:07:27 The Call to Action: Smart Buildings and Steady Innovation
00:07:46 Closing Thoughts: Staying One Step Ahead of the Next Pathogen