Indoor air quality is a significant concern for schools, businesses and hospitals alike, and carpet tiles play a major role in improving air quality. Architects and designers continue to look for new solutions to rectify critical problems in the built environment, including issues such as poor indoor air quality, which have been shown to affect the safety, well-being and efficiency of people living indoor.
Although the quality of outdoor air has been a high priority for governments and business for many years, the quality of indoor air has not been given equal attention. Research, however, shows that people spend up to 90% of their day indoors where pollution rates can be 100 times higher than outdoor pollution. Such studies push manufacturers to develop new technologies designed to improve the efficiency of the indoor air in the built environment.
Quality healthcare grade carpet tiles is capable of trapping airborne irritants and allergens within its fibers, holding them out of the breathing zone before vacuuming can extract them. Without fibers for catching breathable particles, the breathing zone over hard surface products contains nearly nine times as many breathable particles as those contained over a carpeted area. When it comes to washing, eliminating such particulates is more difficult: as mopping mostly helps to disperse allergens around the surface, rather than extracting them.
Besides, carpet tiles can also help to fight mold problems and mildew. Antimicrobials can often be inserted into the back of the carpet, and when carpet tiles make use of open cell fabric backrest, moisture can escape through the seams of the carpet-preventing mold and mildew from forming as a result of trapped moisture.
Carpet tiles can go a long way towards improving the broader indoor environment in addition to improving the indoor air quality. Carpet tiles (especially those with cushion backing) have insulating properties, and can boost thermal comfort, making sitting, standing and working in a space more comfortable.