WHEN PRESENTATIONS FALL SHORT

Historically, I tend not to travel much during April. As the weather starts to change in Houston, the phone can get pretty busy. However, this year will be different: I’ll be visiting my daughter in Seoul, South Korea. Meanwhile, the business will be in good hands. I look forward to seeing my daughter and experiencing the South Korean culture. I’ll have 10 days to enjoy the trip before I’m back on a plane to attend a conference in Orlando.

This will be my second conference in as many months, coming soon after the ASHRAE Winter Conference in January. I try to attend as many indoor air quality conferences as possible throughout the year, since the information I gain while attending these conferences is well worth the 16-hour flight back to the United States.

The ASHRAE Winter Conference proved to be a great source of information. One presentation showed how smoke from wildfires isn’t just an outdoor air quality problem. Soot and buildup can become a serious health issue for nearby homes and buildings. Another presenter shifted the focus from wildfires in the U.S. to air pollution in China. A colleague of mine in China will be conducting research on air filtration systems, evaluating which ones work best for particular buildings.

At the end of both of these presentations, the speakers were able to answer a number of audience questions, and I left feeling more knowledgeable and excited about the future of IAQ. Unfortunately, I don’t walk out of every presentation well-informed, and sometimes presenters leave a lot to be desired.

One presentation I was really looking forward to explored the potential dangers fiberglass presents in insulation around air conditioning systems. Though their application showed great promise, I saw a flaw in their science right from the start. The fiberglass particles they presented as having been blown into the air by the A/C were 3 microns in diameter and roughly 1/8 of an inch long. In terms of particles, that’s actually pretty big — much too big to inhale without notice. A person would cough or sneeze them out right away. The fiberglass particles just weren’t small enough to become embedded into someone’s lungs and cause long-term harm like the speakers suggested.

Additionally, most of the evidence they presented was purely anecdotal, starting examples with phrases like “What we often saw …” or “Many of the people we spoke to said …” Observations and secondhand information do not qualify as research. I’m not saying fiberglass insulation will never be a problem down the road, but the poor science used in that particular presentation isn’t going to be what proves it.

The worst part was hearing the other people praising how “informative” the presentation was. I’ve been in the business for a long time, so my experience allowed me to see the holes in the presenters’ logic. Unfortunately, a person who isn’t familiar with how the human body reacts to different particle sizes could be very misled by their findings. This is the danger of presentations that aren’t grounded in proper science. I would rather not see my colleagues being misled because of poor research.

I’m hoping the presentations I attend at the Orlando convention will be just as informative and helpful at the first two from the winter conference. I’ll be very disappointed to have cut the visit with my daughter short only to sit through another anecdote-filled fiberglass presentation.