Businessmen Allan Doughty and James Pitman pay more attention to the air quality and safety inside a building than the average person...it's their job! "It's something you do automatically, it's trained habit,'' said Mr. Doughty, president of Safe Performance and Environmental Rehabilitation Ltd.

The company was formed two years ago to address the quality of air inside buildings where mould and bacteria are affecting allergy sufferers.

SPER is providing a unique service to the owners and occupants of Bermuda's buildings, designed to make the work environment more comfortable and pleasant.

They say inadequate prevention and mitigation can lead to reduced profits, liability, claims, regulatory action, loss of business and low staff morale.

"We founded the company in the last two years to address a gap that has existed in Bermuda,'' said Mr. Doughty.

"We focus on three things, occupational health, safety and environment and one of the things we do is health and safety audits of businesses so that one can find out where they stand with their health and safety programmes.

"Part of that investigation is to look into indoor air quality. With the advent of more energy efficient air conditioning systems, indoor air pollutants are often recycled and sometimes the percentage of fresh air is not adequate.'' Mr. Doughty says poor air quality could lead to other serious problems.

"If you put this together with the presence of roof leaks and the generally high humidity found in Bermuda, you can have the environment where moulds and bacteria can breed,'' he revealed.

"People normally think of offices as a very safe work environment but there are types of moulds which can cause hypersensitivity and pneumonitis, which is a name for a nasty illness which can lead to permanent lung damage in the worst cases.

"So, in an indoor air quality investigation, the first thing we look for is complaints from people who are working in the office. If they complain of symptoms such as dry throat, chronic coughs, fatigue and other allergenic symptoms we would ask our affiliate company, Bermuda Water Consultants to bring in technical equipment.'' Added Mr. Doughty: "With that equipment we first measure the carbon dioxide levels. As carbon dioxide is a potential predictor of an indoor air quality problem, carbon dioxide, in and of itself of high concentrations, will produce the very symptoms that I just mentioned.'' Both Safe Performance and Environmental Rehabilitation Ltd. and Bermuda Water Consultants Ltd, of which Dr. Kent Simmons is President, come under the umbrella of parent company the Badger Group of Companies for which Mr. Pitman is the chairman. He is also vice president of commercial and administration with SPER while Dr. Simmons is vice president of technical affairs. The companies work closely together.

"They Bermuda Water Consultants originally started as a water investigation company because of a lot of drinking water issues, but it has expanded its technical expertise into a number of different areas and so whenever we have a technical need we bring their expertise in,'' explained Mr. Doughty.

"We're like a team working together and it's this team concept that gives us our strength.'' Mr. Doughty explains how the testing is done.

"They will test for carbon dioxide first and if we find high concentrations of that in certain areas of the office, then they would use another piece of equipment to trap mould spores,'' he revealed.

"This piece of equipment passes a defined volume of air across an AGAR plate, also known as a petrie dish (containing a growth medium) and that dish is sealed and put in a controlled temperature for about a week. Then, under a microscope, the colonies of microbes are then identified and counted.

"If they exceed a pre-defined standard then we will recommend to our client certain remedial actions to destroy the mould infestations.'' Added Mr. Doughty: "We work for clients and the client has to say that he wants the investigation to take place. He might be a building owner, a building tenant, the company leasing the building, or it could be an air-conditioning company that thinks they've got a problem and want to prove it one way or another.'' Often SPER will make an approach to a building owner or tenant following complaints about their workplace by an employee.

"It would be an indication that we might need to go to whoever that principal could be,'' explained Mr. Doughty. "If we feel that there was a situation we would approach the building manager and say `you may have a problem and we have this service available' and they would make a decision as to whether or not they thought it was sufficiently serious to be investigated.

"We have done several investigations to date and they've turned up positive.'' The first thing Bermuda Water Consultants check for are leaky roofs.

"With the presence of roof leaks we now have a medium for the microbes to breed,'' Mr. Doughty says.

"Water gets into ceiling tiles and once the colony forming units start breeding the spores are airborne, carried into the air-conditioning systems and they attach themselves and begin breeding wherever there is moisture in the air-conditioning systems that they have access to.'' If excessive or harmful levels of moulds and bacteria have been detected, a remedial programme is devised. This programme consists of treating the soft furnishings such as curtains, carpets and upholstery with fungicide. The air-conditioning system is also cleaned by technicians at the same time in order to avoid cross contamination by airborne spores. Follow up tests are also conducted to ensure that the infestation has been eliminated.

"They (air-conditioning units) have to be properly maintained and not just with filter changes,'' said the president.

"It's a good idea to check them every now and then for microbial growth.

Another thing we look for with high carbon dioxide levels is the percentage of fresh air being reintroduced to the building.

"Sometimes it's just a matter of getting the air balance right in order to promote a healthier indoor air quality. But if we find moulds and mould spores then we have to take the investigation further.'' Added the president: "Any good air-conditioning maintenance programme should see to it that the filters are cleaned or changed at the manufactures recommended interval. Humidity levels within the building should be checked to ensure that they don't rise above 70 percent. There should be periodical checks done to make sure they don't get going again.'' Mr. Doughty explained how employees, over time, can become sensitised to certain allergens in their workplace.

"Two phrases have come into use to describe these types of situations. The first is Sick Building Syndrome, when you don't really know what's wrong and the second is Building Related Illness, when you find out what the causes of the reaction in the folks are.'' At a time when asbestos in older buildings is still an issue, there are other hazards to be concerned about.

"Asbestos is certainly a pollutant but it is only a concern when it becomes airborne,'' Mr. Doughty stressed.

Keeping the worekplace healthy "If it is `fixed' or coated it can't do a lot of damage to you but if it does become airborne it can get into the lungs. At one time it was mandated that you use asbestos for fire protection and then it was discovered that fibres from it could injure people, so it was banned as a building material.'' The hazardous material is more likely to be found in buildings built before 1970.

Hazards in offices are not confined to the quality of air, Mr. Doughty points out.

"There are other things that need to be considered in offices with respect to health and one of them involves ergonomics (the study of the relationship between people and their working environment),'' explained Mr. Doughty.

"There is something called repetitive stress injury, or RSI, of which Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is one. It's a narrowing of the passage ways that the nerves take through the wrists and it's caused by the unnatural position of the wrist when operating a computer keyboard.

"Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is very painful and is often debilitating. People who contact a serious case of it very often cannot continue in the job that they have of operating a computer. It is rare that you successfully reverse it with surgery, it's a very delicate surgery.'' Said Mr. Pitman: "This is easy to prevent and difficult to cure. These are the sorts of the things that we look at when doing a full health and safety survey of an office environment.

"There are many workplaces where the health and safety committee exists pretty much in name only, but how it does its job, how effective it is, the access that committee has to senior management to get things done. ..those are key issues.

"Those are key areas of advice that this company would give to a client down to working with their safety committee and to train that committee to make sure that they are effective in what they do. So that at the end of the day the role is to keep that client out of compliance difficulty with the Government.'' Added Mr. Pitman: "The Government tends to come in when something has gone wrong, when an injury at work has asked to be investigated. But what SPER exists to do is get in there first and work with that employer.

"An average sized employer has obviously got a great many things to worry about in the conduct of his business, and when it comes down to the finer points like health and safety, these are all things that tend to get pushed to one side. `I'll worry about that tomorrow'.'' Said Mr. Doughty: "There are two things that you do, one is preventive and the other is mitigative, which lessens the impact. No body is in business without risk and some risk is acceptable and some can be made acceptable.

"You can't eliminate risk 100 per cent, so you have to get it to a tolerable level.'' The company started out quietly but business is steadily increasing. "We don't advertise, mostly word of mouth, in fact this is the first interview we've given anybody,'' said the president.