Page 20 - April 2023

’

What s That

Smell?

STRANGE STORIES
OF CHASING ODORS

By Travis West

f all the work I do with indoor air find anything that would cause the problem. The same
quality (IAQ), chasing odors tends to chemicals and materials had been used on the other
lead to some of the strangest stories. floors, but only the third floor had the odor.
It’s not my favorite part of my job, Trying to work through the whole thing in my
Obut when a client calls with an odor mind, I took another look at the area. In the reception
problem, I’m not going to leave them hanging. Re- area, there were two chairs and a round coffee table.
cently, I had two specific incidents that highlight the This brand-new furniture had been purchased by a
strange nature of chasing odors. tenant, and I suggested it be relocated.
“Humor me,” I said. “I’ll do more research, but in
the meantime, move those chairs and the coffee table
Interior Decorating Gone Wrong into an empty office and see what goes on in there.
When tenants in a new building began reporting a “They moved the furniture on a Thursday. The
bad odor in the elevator lobby and reception area of the following week, the guy from the GC (the term stands
third floor, the building’s general contractor hired me for the general contractor) called to tell me the odor
to help. was no longer in the elevator or reception area. When
The tenants and building manager thought the I asked where it had gone, he reported that the odor
odor was coming from the HVAC system, but if that had followed the furniture into the empty office. I
were the case, the odor would have spread across a didn’t pat myself on the back because the source had
large portion of the floor. Since the building was only been pretty low-hanging fruit, in my opinion.
three months old, I initially suspected the glues, dyes, That sounds like the end of the story, right? Well, just
or some other materials used in the construction ten days later, I found myself in a continuing education
process could have been creating the odor. However, class with another IAQ investigator. This guy tells me
when I reviewed the material safety sheet, I couldn’t that he just read my furniture report. When I asked why

20 NBIZ ■ April 2023