Odour & Air Movement In Your Apartment

20 Jan

Odour & Air Movement In Your Apartment

One of the most common problems experienced by the occupants of apartment buildings is the transfer of objectionable odours from one apartment to another. Tobacco smoke and cooking odours top the list of complaints. Other complaints are often heard concerning the transfer of odours, noise, light and sometimes pests, under apartment entry doors. The smell of car exhaust from underground parking garages can also be problematic.

Regardless of whether an apartment is rented or owned, there are steps you can take to solve, or at least improve, odour conditions in your apartment. However, before you take any actions that might affect your unit or other areas of the building, you should consult with the building’s management and obtain their approval.

Understanding Air Movement in Your Building
For odours to transfer between apartments, two conditions must exist. First, there must be a hole, or pathway, for the air to move through and, second, there must be a driving force to push the air through the hole. The following sections will help you to better understand where the holes are  and what forces act on your building.This, in turn, will enable you to determine the source of the odour problem in your apartment and what you might do about it.

The “pathways” Despite appearances, apartment buildings can have relatively leaky interior ceiling, floor and wall partitions that allow air to move through the building.

Odour transfer between apartments would not otherwise be  possible. There may be leakage pathways through the walls and floors separating you from your neighbours beside, above and below your apartment at the following locations:

  • Under the entry door from the corridor
  • Electrical outlets and switches
  • Wiring penetrations
  • Plumbing penetrations
  • Ducts
  • Joints between the walls and floors that define your apartment’s boundaries
  • Dropped ceilings

In the common areas of the building, stairwells, elevator shafts and garbage chutes serve as passageways for air movement throughout the building.

The “driving forces” shows how air tends to move in apartment buildings in the winter months under the influence of the three primary driving forces: stack effect, wind effect and mechanical ventilation. In the winter, air tends to move upward through your building driven by a force known as “stack effect”. Stack effect causes air to be drawn in from outside at the lower levels of the building, rise up through the floor levels and then leak out of the building at the upper floors. At the same time, wind will cause air to leak into the apartments on the windward side of the building, and flow across the common corridors to the apartments on the leeward side of the building. This is known as “wind effect”.

Ventilation systems can also cause the transfer of air to and out of your apartment. Most apartment buildings constructed since the mid-1960s have corridor ventilation systems that deliver outdoor air to the common corridors on each floor. This is done to ventilate the corridors, to contain odours in apartments and to provide make-up air for in-suite range hoods, bathroom fans and clothes dryers. Corridor air systems are operated either intermittently— usually on a regular schedule—or continuously.

Corridor air ventilation systems tend to push air from the common corridors into adjacent apartments through the gaps that exist around apartment doors. Sometimes this gap also lets in objectionable odours, light and noise. CMHC research has found that corridor air ventilation systems will not necessarily improve air quality within individual apartments.
Much of the air delivered to the corridors escapes the building through the elevator shafts, garbage chute and stairwells. Sometimes during the winter months, the corridor air system can be overpowered by strong stack and wind forces and may not effectively ventilate the corridor areas or prevent the spreadof odours.

Apartments also usually have exhaust systems to ventilate the bathrooms and kitchens.

The exhaust fans are either in the apartment or are located  in a central location elsewhere in the building. The operation of bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans may effectively ventilate your bathroom and kitchen but their operation can draw unwanted air from other areas of the building into your apartment.

Kitchen and bathroom fans can sometimes be noisy and ineffective. Parking garages have ventilation systems that vent automobile exhaust outdoors. These systems can operate continuously, however, for energy conservation, they can be operated by controllers that turn the system off except when concentrations of car exhaust emissions exceed pre-set limits. When the systems are not running, sometimes stack effect can move exhaust odours from the garage up into the building.

Finally, elevator shafts, stairwells, wiring conduits, duct enclosures, plumbing chases and garbage chutes that run from floor to floor allow air, driven by stack effect, to move from lower levels to upper levels.

Contact your REALTOR at Coldwell Banker Vantage Realty if you have concerns about odour in your apartment.

Reference