"If you want to know which properties are in the city, it's enough to climb the water tower and see which roofs are rusted." Although the saying has been sharpened, it is not completely out of the blue.
Indoor air problems are unfortunately familiar both in kindergartens, schools and municipal halls. According to the Ministry of the Environment's Damp and Mold Talks, there are problems especially in old buildings and municipal properties. Significant moisture and mold damage occurs in 12–18 percent of the floor area of schools and kindergartens.
More than half of the properties for early childhood education and basic education are more than 40 years old, and they are starting to reach the end of their technical life cycle. A large part comes from the 1960s and 70s, when new structural solutions were introduced, such as flat roofs and false plinths. These have since proven to be risky, especially if maintenance is compromised.
In the past decades, a janitor worked and lived in the schools, who kept the corners in order and on that side the students under the master's reprimand. In the same way, nowadays blocked gutters or snow melting against the wall do not catch the eyes of the maintenance men who visit the place randomly.
What goes wrong?
Under the pressure to save, repairs are often started only when problems have already appeared. In this case, repairs become more difficult and expensive, and buildings are exposed to indoor air pollution. It is estimated that the municipal offices have a repair debt of around 2,5 billion euros. The repair debt refers to the amount of money that should have been used for the necessary repairs in order for the building to be in satisfactory operating condition.
Repair projects, on the other hand, may fail and do not completely or permanently eliminate indoor air symptoms. According to experts, the reason for this may be that repairs are started with insufficient information about the condition of the building, the repairs are too limited and the designers and implementers of demanding repair projects do not have the necessary special expertise.
A school that has been badly damaged is like the position of a former rookie: It will not get better by repairing it, but must be completely rebuilt. This is often cheaper. At the same time, completely new types of learning environments and multi-purpose spaces can be created. It is most economical to look at the service network as a whole, give up some of the old properties and build new ones according to the needs of the municipalities.
Now many people are probably wondering what to do when even the new buildings are immediately moldy. In new buildings, possible moisture damage is usually detected and repaired in time, and indoor air problems are often not about mold but other types of emissions. These are not toxic but can cause symptoms. For example, new building and decoration materials emit chemical compounds into the room air, i.e. VOC emissions, for which permissible limit values have been determined.
Plastic mats and concrete have proven to be a challenging combination. In some cases, indoor air problems have occurred, even if the concrete was properly dry and the work was done in accordance with all quality criteria. The construction industry has launched a research project in order to find combinations and implementation methods of screeds, adhesives and carpets that are guaranteed to work.
What should be done?
The most effective way to prevent indoor air pollution in both old and new buildings is to adjust the mechanical ventilation correctly and keep it on constantly. In this way, the indoor air changes sufficiently, there is no negative pressure in the premises that pulls replacement air through unclean structures and, for example, moisture and harmful substances cannot accumulate in the ventilation ducts.
In both old and new properties, there are also direct design and construction errors. It is important that municipalities demand high quality in their projects, both in terms of design and construction, and also monitor that they get it. Criteria other than the lowest price must be used in the selection of partners, although the Procurement Act and appeal processes to the market court do not make it easy.
In addition, sufficient time and resources must be reserved for quality. Sometimes it is desired to tighten the construction schedule so that, for example, the new school can be completed before the beginning of the next academic year in August.
In the field of real estate and construction, a lot of research has been done, experts have been trained, guidelines have been drawn up and methods have been developed to prevent and repair moisture and mold damage. The material has also been compiled comprehensively To the moisture management in construction database, commissioned by Rakennusteollisuus RT and the Ministry of the Environment.
Sufficient information is available only when all parties act accordingly. The ten largest cities and the real estate and construction industry are here to help moisture management commitment, which widely implements the best practices for getting moisture under control.
Jani Kemppainen
Agent
Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries (CFCI)
For example, old school buildings once had gravity ventilation. The buildings weren't very dense either, so the ventilation played a role. Then came mechanical ventilation. Traditionally, incoming air machines are turned off for weekends and nights. The vacuum cleaners in the toilets are left running. In this case, the building becomes even more underpressure than it is designed for in normal use. The negative pressure pulls all impurities from and through the structures.
When one leak point is sealed, the suction moves to the next easier point for air flow.
The more you compress, the greater the negative pressure increases. Buildings must be designed in a state of equilibrium. If the ventilation is stopped during the night, the separate top vacuum cleaners must also be stopped. Then a balanced space is maintained in the building. Nothing can happen to the building during a short shutdown. Doesn't even happen in houses with gravity.
As someone working in the construction industry and as a self-builder, etc., I have wondered why there is never mold in the house that was built by myself..? But if you buy a house and the loan presses on it, etc., then what if you start getting sick, etc.???? Do you know someone who has built their own house and says later that there is mold in the house??
I completely removed the air conditioning from the old gravity houses, ventilation as before during the coffee hour and the morning sun with the windows open for a while, the children out of the schools for class and the glasses open - that's it
In the blog, we ask, why exactly do municipal properties get moldy? Without slighting indoor air problems in public buildings, I would argue that indoor air problems are more broadly a question of the production culture and operating practices of the entire construction industry and industry. Now there is a lot of talk about mold, but it is not the most serious indoor air problem in the industry, although it is the most common.
Tampere is talking about the accidental discovery of asbestos in the indoor air of the old Onkiniemi factory, which contained small businesses. In order to avoid accidental exposure, the new asbestos law requires that houses built before 1994 undergo an asbestos survey during renovation. The mapping is done if, for example, the tiles in the bathroom are changed or the walls are sanded. This costs hundreds of euros. In the past, thousands of renovations have been done without mapping.
In the regulation on food packaging labels, it is ensured that the buyer of the product knows what he gets in the package. You can see the ingredients used in the product and the product's nutritional value from the ingredient list on the jam jar's packaging label. This is the case with all foodstuffs. How can the culture of construction be such that we still don't know what materials our apartment costing hundreds of thousands of euros is made of. What is the moral and legal responsibility of the legislator, the construction industry and the developer? Potentially thousands of people have been and are still unknowingly exposed to asbestos in the context of living. Fortunately, almost everyone doesn't get sick.
The reason is that you don't know how to train, plan, build and maintain. Could have been fixed correctly because you don't know the directions....
You just don't know how to do it.
The children's hospital, etc. will be in the mold at least partially within 5-10 years after completion. When you don't know how.