The Inspector’s Guide to Indoor Pool Air Quality

The indoor air quality associated with swimming pools in hotels, water parks and other recreational facilities can pose a variety of health risks to swimmers, lifeguards and building occupants. Additionally, the high humidity environments of indoor pools combined with the off-gassing of disinfection by-products can interact to damage building interiors and impact building use.  These problems can be mitigated through a combination of proper water feature management and well designed indoor ventilation systems. This presentation will provide an overview of the health threats and occupant comfort issues commonly associated with indoor water feature air and how this indoor environment can impact building structure and use. It will discuss the critical components for managing indoor water feature air, including environmental quality and occupant comfort maintenance. The above information will then be used to provide a background and basis for a discussion of the Center for Disease Control’s draft Ventilation and Air Quality Module of the Model Aquatic Health Code and how pool operators, building managers and inspectors can use this proposed code as a guide to resolving indoor air quality complaints.