-What is Indoor Air Quality?
Though a vague term, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) represents many diverse factors and parameters that can be measured about the air we breathe. At a high level, IAQ represents how healthy the air within our buildings is.

-Why is Indoor Air Quality Important?
Given that we spend approximately 90% of our lives indoors, ensuring the air we breathe in those locations meets safety standards is of vital importance. Not only can poor air quality and pollutants lead to damage to our short and long term health, it also contributes to clear loss of productivity in office buildings, decreases in student learning, and even lead to a downturn in physical and cognitive development in children.
Through the recent events of worldwide pandemics and widespread wildfires, it is clear that the traditional method of managing only air circulation standards and "acceptable" ventilation rates is no longer sufficient. We need IAQ Data, and we need it to be interpretable, accurate and actionable.

-IAQ Parameters
During the course of any IAQ Analysis, we focus on key parameters that provide the greatest insight into the health of the air in a facility.

-Temperature
While temperature is likely the simplest attribute that we can measure in our environment, it has a significant impact on the comfort of the occupants. In addition, tracking temperature trends is vital to create inferences about the state of ventilation and mechanical systems in the facility.
Healthy Temperatures for the workplace are commonly indicated at between 20 and 24 degrees Celsius.

-Humidity
Similar to temperature, humidity plays a major role in occupant comfort, but it is also a critical indicator in the possible viral load and transmission in the air we breathe. Linking well maintained humidity setpoints to mechanical ventilation systems also is a key indicator if systems are operating effectively, or if there could be possible issues wit the on-site ventilation system.
Optimal humidity for healthy and comfortable air is usually between 30 and 50% relative humidity.

-Particulate Matter
Particulate Matter (PM) is a mixture of solid and liquid particles in the air. While it may be difficult to isolate what precisely the materials are, they are broken down by the size of the particle itself:
PM10: Particles of around 10 microns or less in diameter. These particles can range from pollen, allergens, and other types of dust (including concrete dust, mold and other dangerous agitators)
PM2.5: Particles of around 2.5 microns in diameter. These are included in the measurements for PM10 but also include a larger collection of allergens, smog, tobacco smoke, and vapor particulates that can provide transport for viruses and bacteria. (PM2.5 is considered more dangerous as it can enter the lungs and sometimes the bloodstream. The Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor study have associated PM2.5 with the greatest proportion of adverse health effects of all varieties of air pollution.
Safe concentration values for PM10 and PM2.5 vary from place to place but should remain below 20 and 10 micrograms/m3 respectively, though over double that concentration can be safe for lesser periods of exposure.

-Carbon Dioxide
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) being the direct biproduct of our respiratory system, is often used as a key indicator for IAQ and is often a component of analyzing the efficacy of air exchanging ventilation systems. Areas with large concentrations of people frequently will require a higher rate of ventilation, and often those areas can change over the lifetime of a facility, making the investigation into CO2 concentrations per area (and over the course of a day) vital in the analysis of IAQ.
CO2 levels should ideally be below 800 PPM at all times, though transient population concentrations and outdoor air quality can affect this threshold.

-Volatile Organic Compounds
Volotile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are pollutants often found in building materials, cleaning products and other chemical reactions. VOCs include a wide array of compounds including ethanol, acetylene, methane, Formaldehyde and many others.Since detecting each of these compounds individually can be complicated and expensive, it is often easier to determine instead the Total of the VOCs in the area (or TVOCs) and find areas where the total concentration is high and then perform individual analysis.
TVOC concentration should not exceed an average of 250 ppb for optimal healthy environments.

-How is the "IAQ Score" calculated?
The IAQ Score is a measurement of how far away each parameter is from it's "optimal range". Then each parameter is given a grade:
A score of 100 is "Best"
75 to 99 is "Great"
50 to 74 is "Good"
25 to 49 is "Okay"
0 to 24 is "Poor"

The total IAQ Score is the average of the 6 parameter's (Temperature, Humidity, CO2, PM10, PM2.5, and TVOC) scores.
See the chart below for more information.