        |
|
||
 |
|
Pop Quiz #1
|
Studio Air Test Results These charts were created during a few typical days in a dance academy near Dallas Texas. The studios are large, modern and have high ceilings. While the facility has many air conditioners and the temperatures are kept at a comfortable level, the actual ventilation rate is poor. The chart for Studio 5 shows that the air quality is recovering slowly after 9 pm (21:00 on the 24 hr clock that is used here) and continues to improve until the first class of the next day. The graphs show that CO2 levels climb rapidly as soon as the studio is occupied (starting at 4 pm on Thursday and Friday and starting at 9 am on Saturday). After the first one hour of use on each day, the studio's air quality gets bad enough to bother sensitive people and it continues to get worse from there, hitting 2.5 times the maximum recommended CO2 levels. This CO2 pollution can put a significant number of dancers in distress and it contributes to the sluggish mood and behavior of the students. On Monday evening (marked by the red circle) the Jazz teacher evidently felt some discomfort and she opened the outside door. Notice how fast the air quality recovers with this ventilation. The jaggy appearance of the lines during normal studio hours are due to things like air currents and HVAC use, varying exertion levels, and the varying locations of the dancers and instructors in the room.
The chart for Studio 3 is more dramatic because it is a smaller space and the room is more airtight. Fewer people use this room at the same time but the CO2 levels get even worse, hitting nearly 3.5 times the maximum recommended CO2 levels. On longer days that have morning classes it is very likely that air quality gets much worse than shown here.
As a general rule of thumb, a small percentage of people will have breathing difficulty when relaxing in a room where CO2 levels exceed 1000 p.p.m.. The need for good air is increased significantly during dance and exercise. At the 2500 and 3500 p.p.m. levels seen in these studios you can expect significant asthma reactions (possibly hidden by drug or inhaler use), breathing difficulty, sluggish mental performance and even significant lung pain in some of the dancers. The poor ventilation levels seen here will also help colds spread among students and staff. Poor ventilation increases the quantity of toxins that are pulled deeply into the lungs during exercise -- nasty chemicals like formaldehyde from the dance floors.
< Back to Pop Quiz #2 To Long Term Damage >
Copyright © DanceArt.com |
