Chile increasingly gives greater importance to maintaining air quality levels that guarantee a healthy and comfortable environment. This awareness is reflected in the resolutions and supreme decrees issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning (MINVU), the standards published by the National Institute of Standardization of Chile (INN) and in the texts published by mutual security societies.
However, despite this awareness, legal requirements regarding ventilation are still general and lax. For example, in Supreme Decree No. 47 issued by the MINVU in 1992, the presence of manual or mechanical ventilation is only required in habitable and non-habitable premises, bathrooms, kitchens and laundry rooms, without specifying maximum levels of humidity in the air or minimum air renewal rates for these spaces. Article 4.14.10 of this Decree is the strictest in stating that work premises must have a volumetric capacity of no less than 10 m3 per worker and windows that allow a minimum renovation of 8 m3 per hour.
Even so, the regulations leave the choice of ventilation to discretion, as long as an environment free of vapors, dust, harmful gases and with a humidity no higher than that outside is maintained. There is also Supreme Decree No. 594, which requires natural or artificial ventilation in workplaces to guarantee comfortable and healthy environmental conditions.
The requirements include a minimum of 10 m3 per worker, 20 m3 per hour per person, with mechanical ventilation or 6 renewals per hour with a maximum of 60. We highlight the exempt resolution No. 7713 of the MINVU, of June 2017, which requires the installation of forced air extractors with hygrostats in bathrooms and kitchens, or some passive system that ensures the minimum renovations necessary to eliminate steam production in the Solidarity Fund housing projects.
Although ventilation legislation may be basic, in Chile, ventilation systems are based on international standards. The most used and accepted by designers is ASHRAE 62.1, which establishes minimum renovations according to the type of room and its use, as well as interior quality levels to reduce adverse health effects and avoid "sick building syndrome." , which occurs when harmful particles are not evacuated due to poor ventilation. Such is the acceptance of this standard that the National Institute of Standardization of Chile adopted it as the Chilean Standard NCh3308, being identical to the ASHRAE. This standard includes air extraction rates, maximum allowable humidity percentages, safety considerations for ventilation equipment, maintenance guidelines, air quality classification, among other fundamental aspects. Regarding air transport duct systems, the recommendations published by the National Association of Air Conditioning and Metalworking Contractors (SMACNA) are followed. In addition, the national regulations issued by the Regional Ministerial Secretariat (SEREMI) and the Superintendence of Electricity and Fuels (SEC) are complied with to guarantee safety in the installations of ventilation equipment.
It is important to mention that, although the National Institute of Standardization of Chile is the only organization that has standardized ventilation, it is a private entity that disseminates standards, but not laws, therefore, there is no legal obligation to comply with these standards, more beyond what is established in the decrees mentioned above.
If you are looking to carry out projects under quality standards, we can go to the main source of information and on which the current Chilean regulations in the ventilation area are based, we refer to ANSI/ASHRAE 62.1-2007 in which you can find all the points necessary for a ventilation project to be developed in the best way under the main standards of Ventilation, Extraction and Air Infiltration. In this ASHRAE standard, which replaces its previous version from 2004, we can find tables with air renewal values depending on the location; the activities carried out, the number of occupants, etc. We can also see the standard air quality values that are required in specific rooms or in places with critical activities, such as hospitals, mining, or parking lots, where controlled environments must be found, since the accumulation of particulate matter in these
areas would be a problem due to the activities carried out there.
As we mentioned previously, Chilean regulations derive from the ASHRAE regulations, so managing these regulations correctly ensures that we have all the necessary knowledge for the correct calculation of ambient ventilation, with each of the parameters necessary to work professionally. a project, it is also important to know the extraction standards for an environment, since it is essential to work on ventilation and extraction concepts together .
Every day we make progress in seeking to improve our ventilation projects. For this, it is essential to have a standard that regularizes us all as far as the projects are concerned, thus, the standards used in the projects would be more professional and equal for all. Currently, each designer uses the regulations that best suit their way of working, which means that each of the projects can be under different regulations, thus varying the results of each project with respect to the other. With a legal regulatory entity, projects should be left under common regulations for all, thus facilitating working conditions for different structures in the future.
The ASHRAE regulations also have more modern editions focused on specific workplaces, such as mining companies, hospitals and others, then the ventilation volumes for air quality are delivered and additionally the ventilation volume in places of medical care in Pdf format.
We invite you to download the ASHRAE regulations safely through our website, do not forget to give us your opinion.
