Addendum 62o to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62-2001, “Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality,” is available for free at www.ashrae.org/template/PDFDetail/assetid/24653.

The addendum was approved for publication at ASHRAE's 2002 Annual Meeting, and six appeals later were filed. ASHRAE denied the appeals at its 2003 Winter Meeting.

In its decision, the ANSI Board of Standards Review voted to deny all appeals made to that organization, thereby upholding its earlier approval of the addendum.

Addendum 62o changes the table of outdoor air ventilation requirements in the standard to apply to non-smoking spaces only, including the deletion of smoking lounges from the table. In the same table, a footnote is added explaining that the table applies to no smoking areas, according to David Butler, chair of the Standard 62 committee. Rates for some spaces were lowered based on their application to only non-smoking spaces.

The addendum also addresses ventilation in smoking areas by requiring these areas to have more ventilation and air cleaning. It also prohibits recirculation or transfer of air from smoking to non-smoking areas.

In adding the requirement for additional ventilation and air cleaning, it is noted that the specific amount of additional ventilation cannot be determined until cognizant health authorities have determined an acceptable level of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), according to Butler.

An appendix (meaning it is not required for compliance to the standard) that provides a method to allow designers to determine the additional ventilation over what would be provided in a similar non-smoking area also is included. However, this additional ventilation is for the purpose of odor control only, according to Butler.

Typically, the increase in ventilation is about 10 to 40 cfm/person over the non-smoking rate in spaces without heavy smoking, he said. The actual increase will depend on the smoking rate and occupancy density of the specific space.

Publication date: 10/06/2003