Workplace IAQ
Workplace indoor air quality sits at the intersection of health-and-safety law, building-services engineering and occupant wellbeing. A continuous monitoring programme turns the Regulation 6 duty into measurable, defensible evidence.
Primary act
HSWA 1974
Workplace regs
1992, Reg 6
ACOP
L24
Design standard
BS EN 16798-1
The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 — Regulation 6 — require effective and suitable provision of fresh or purified air in every enclosed workplace. ACOP L24 is treated as authoritative by HSE inspectors and now expects active management, not assumption.
Continuous workplace air monitoring is the evidence layer that closes this duty: it shows that outdoor-air supply, filtration and zone control are working as designed, day after day.
Sensor networks measure CO₂, PM2.5, TVOC, temperature and relative humidity continuously at breathing-zone height. Periodic surveys add speciated VOCs, formaldehyde, NO₂ and mould where required. See indoor air quality testing for the full methodology.
The programme typically covers open-plan floors, meeting rooms, breakout spaces, server rooms, kitchenettes and any zone with prior complaint history.
The most common workplace IAQ compliance gap is not poor air — it is poor evidence. A defensible programme produces: a current IAQ risk assessment, a written ventilation strategy with measured commissioning, a maintenance log for filters and AHUs, twelve months of continuous data, and a complaint register with closed actions.
Read more on workplace environmental monitoring or on office ventilation monitoring.