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‘The importance of Good Ventilation in the Indoor Workplace’
Vortice ‘Brand Leader’ Interview Podcast – Transcript to support learning
Every effort has been made to flawlessly transcribe the interview to support learning but please consider the recorded audio of the interview as the actual source of information for learning purposes.
Hi this is Mick de Leiburne and welcome to this special edition of the BNE Product News ‘Brand Leader’ podcast for the Construction & Building Services industry, where we look at product innovations that meet the evolving specification needs for product specifiers.
Well, as the ‘new normal’ starts to take shape, lockdown eases and people are encouraged to return to the workplace, there’s a huge emphasis on how to make buildings healthier places to be and nothing more so, than how important good ventilation in indoor spaces is to mitigating the spread of airborne viruses, micro-organisms and bacteria and also to the wellbeing of the occupants helping people to feel more invigorated in the workplace. Better for workers and better for employers with everyone feeling protected and revitalised by a constant flow of clean air in the room.
Well, one way, dependent on where your workplace may be, is to open a window or vent or alternatively you can tap into the possibilities that advances in technology offer, like Vortice, a brand that is focussing on Air Purification as a solution – and we are lucky enough to have Jennifer Quinn, Marketing Manager at Vortice with us today to explain how that works and how effective it can be in making people feel safe and great in the workplace environment.
Jennifer joins us on the phone….
Hi Jennifer, thanks for joining us today for this BNE Product News ‘Brand Leader’ podcast – I know how busy you are
Hi Mick, thank you for inviting me today to talk about ventilation.
Well Jennifer, let’s start with ‘Why is ventilation in our indoor spaces important’?
At Vortice, we’ve always had a strong focus on the health benefits of good ventilation, people spend around 90% of their time indoors and unless we take steps to ventilate our homes and workplaces correctly, the quality of the air we breathe can be 50 x more polluted than outdoor air, with all the associated health risks. Symptoms like dizziness, watery eyes, fatigue, headaches coughing.
We also only need to contemplate the number of cleaning products we use within our houses, hair sprays, paints, air fresheners, carpets. All of these things we bring into our buildings that are feeding our indoor air quality. This can cause issues like condensation and mould which can worsen skin allergies and possibly respiratory conditions. Also, today’s new build buildings tend to be extremely airtight, which has its benefits in terms of heating bills and insulation, but does cause issues with fresh air coming into the property.
And why now, in particular, would you say – it is more important than ever – in the indoor Workplace?
As everyone is aware at the minute, the current pandemic, with Covid, its never been more important now to think about the air you breathe, especially indoors and the Government have given a raft of information supporting the needs to ventilate properly, and they explain things like in poorly ventilated rooms the amount of virus in the air can build up increasing the spread of Covid, especially if there is a lot of infected people in the room. The virus can also remain in the air after the infected person has left, so bringing fresh air into a room and removing older stale air that contains virus reduces the chance of spreading Covid 19. The more fresh air that is brought inside or [older stale air] extracted out of the room the quicker any air borne virus will be removed.
What are the key products that can help to achieve these goals would you say?
Vortice believe there are 3 fundamental factors in helping reduce the spread of Covid 19. They are Ventilation, Purification and Sanitisation. So first stage is to make sure your room is well ventilated by means of an adequate fan to remove the stale air or to open a window. The next stage would be to make sure the air is purified, so we have a range of air purifiers called the Depuro Pro and these include HEPA filters which are able to retain up to 99.995% of pollutants and reduce the risk of pathogens such as virus and bacteria There is also a version with a photocatalysis UVC lamp which also sanitises by removing bacteria and virus which makes this extremely effective against the spread of Covid and other viruses. We’ve had excellent feedback from these units used in hospitals, care homes, gyms, nurseries. And then the third stage would be to sanitise. Other than having a range of hand dryers and soap dispensers we’ve recently launched a UVLOGIKA SYSTEM, which is a germicidal UV-C lamp, which is ideal for disinfecting surfaces. Its radiation quickly eliminates up to 99% of bacteria, virus and other pathogens that are deposited on surfaces.
Well that’s a fantastic range that seems to cover all the bases. And finally, how do you see this product range developing in the next few years – the increasing focus on the need to improve the quality of the air that we breathe indoors, in such a variety of settings, must provide a great scope for product development ?
Yes, so we are always continually looking at expanding our ventilation, purification and sanitisation range and we are looking always to grow our product ranges in Domestic, Commercial and Industrial. We have recently just acquired a Spanish company, Casals Ventilation, which is going to enable us to expand our industrial offering on the market, so going forward we really want to be innovative and pro-active in regards to product development to the environment and issues that surround us.
Well Jennifer, thank you again for joining us for this BNE Product News ‘Brand Leader’ podcast today. Vortice are clearly one of the leading lights in the world of ‘clean air’ ventilation ‘product research, design and development’, with an innovative range of products available – that are designed to help us all to stay safe and feel good – as we return to our shared indoor workspaces!
Thank you Mick – thank you for your time.
It’s been an absolute pleasure.
For more information about the Vortice range of products, please go to www.vortice.ltd.uk