BRINGING IAQ INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

Happy New Year!

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten what month it is. With the way my business operates, March is the start of our year. This is the time when proactive building owners and property managers call me to walk through their buildings. They say the best defense is a good offense, but when it comes to indoor air quality (IAQ), it’s far better to look for potential problems before they occur rather than always trying to play catch-up.

I’ve been doing proactive IAQ inspections for a number of different clients over the last 20 years. My largest proactive client has me walk through four buildings between 34–50 stories each, so as you can imagine, I get a lot of exercise while making note of tiny details. This year, I am thrilled to be trying something a little different. I’m now conducting proactive inspections and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification surveys simultaneously!

LEED buildings need to be recertified every five years, so in the past, a few clients have asked if I could do both inspections at once, but the workload — inspections and written reports for both surveys — was a little much. To be honest, the proactive surveys alone take so much dedication that I claim every year will be my last, but I’m always back out there again when March rolls around. Fortunately, I now have a secret weapon: an app. Over the last several months, I have developed an app that enables me to input details I notice during a building walk-through. When I’m finished, it automatically generates a report.

Building an app is an interesting process. I’m not writing the code myself — I hired a company to handle that — but I needed to think about the work I do and what functions the app needed in order to make my work easier. The idea of creating an app to help streamline my proactive inspections is something I’ve tossed around for years, but I haven’t had the time to make it a reality. However, when my biggest client told me they were purchasing more buildings, increasing the number of proactive inspections I’d do this year to 20, I realized I need to make time.

With the app, I’ll still be walking down countless staircases, but there will be far less writing in my future. Plus, since I’m already in the building inputting details on the app, it’s not that much extra work to add the 35 other things that need to be examined during a LEED inspection. I’ll be honest — what I’m most looking forward to about using this app is no longer needing to manually turn my notes into a full report. Taking the busywork out of your job is one of technology’s greatest accomplishments.

In creating this app, I’m able to bring to life an idea I’ve had in my head for years, and that’s really exciting. Plus, I’m thrilled to offer my clients more precise proactive inspections in addition to helping them stay LEED certified.