Many people in the environmental industry have heard of the terms “sick building syndrome” and “indoor air quality” (IAQ), but substantially fewer understand the concept of “building bake-out”. 

The fundamental idea on containment is simple: keep one or more contaminants in or out of an area. Quite literally, a containment is an isolation system.

As we seek to return to normalcy without a vaccine, COVID-19 confronts us with a troubling reality. We spend 90% of our time indoors in the U.S. and Europe, and scientific evidence indicates we are nearly 20 times more likely to be infected by the virus indoors than outdoors. 

How many times have you shown up at a job site only to find your containment has stopped containing? Sometimes it’s the tape coming unstuck, sometimes the homeowner has been poking around, and sometimes all you get is a collective “I don’t know” along with the ever-impressive shoulder shrug.

Let’s talk contracts. To what degree do you guarantee and warranty mold remediation? How do you balance your services with your legal (and moral) obligations regarding mold clean up? A look at your contract terms should match up to your verbal promises made to the client. So where are you?

Mold produces a byproduct as it grows and matures. That byproduct is called a mycotoxin. The US National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health states, “Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by mold." As the name implies, it is a toxin.

All signs point to sustainability, safety and BIM technology when it comes to future success in the HVAC industry. But where do you begin? And most importantly, how do you keep building on what you’re already doing? Steve Jones — director of industry insights and research for Dodge Data & Analytics and keynote speaker at this year’s AEC BuildTech (April 30-May 2) — shows you the way forward to the future.

The indoor environment is an inherently complex system. There’s the building itself, of course. The design, materials, systems, and so much more come together to create a home, office, retail space, hospital, school, and so on.