Sheet Metal Workers Local 40 in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, has not been alone in its push for air quality standards. The Connecticut Education Association (CEA), which represents public school teachers across the state, has been calling attention to the need for air quality standards and inspection requirements in Connecticut’s schools for years. Their common interest developed into a coalition that brought together business leaders, labor unions and political figures to advocate for legislation on indoor air quality inspections.

Indoor air quality (IAQ) and ventilation verification have become more familiar terms as people across the country began to emerge from COVID lockdowns and remote learning. School systems struggled to safely reopen and assure worried parents that in-person learning was a safe option. However, with no national, state or local IAQ standards, school districts were left to determine how best to address IAQ on their own.

The CEA had been pushing the state to address school IAQ and create benchmarks for assessments. In March, the CEA launched an awareness campaign called “What You Don’t See” to inform the public about issues sometimes invisible to the people making decisions, including IAQ. The CEA lobbied heavily to get legislation passed and brought many members forward to testify about health issues they had developed due to poor air quality.

“COVID publicized a problem we’ve been pointing out for years,” said Matthew Cole, Local 40 member and principal at Wing’s Testing and Balancing Co. Inc., in Branford.

Cole performs ventilation verification inspections and employs technicians certified by the International Certification Board (ICB) to do the work. He worked alongside other members of the coalition to help draft legislation and educate state legislators on why it was needed. Local 40 and its partners took a careful approach, working to ensure some form of IAQ legislation would succeed.

Ultimately, rather than pass a stand-alone IAQ bill, the legislation was incorporated into the state budget and codified. The final budget provides $175 million for a school HVAC improvement grant program over the next two years. It also requires in-depth HVAC assessments for all schools to be completed by skilled, trained and certified technicians. Initial assessments must be completed by July 2024 and then repeated every five years, and all work must be performed by licensed contractors.

It is estimated there are 1,150 schools in the state that will be required to perform assessments every five years, Cole said.

“What they did not codify is the criteria for implementation of the ventilation assessments or how the funding would be allocated,” he added.

Fortunately, the legislation requires that a specialty working group be created, which will be tasked with establishing the means and methods for implementation. The group will identify optimal indoor temperature and humidity ranges and recommend criteria for emergency school closure due to temperature, humidity or IAQ. It will create protocols for school districts to address complaints of mold, pest infestation, hazardous chemicals, odors or poor IAQ. The group will also establish criteria for prioritizing HVAC repair and remediation, define benchmarks to establish optimal HVAC system performance for minimizing the spread of infectious disease and advise on the frequency and uniformity of assessments and inspections — all while following best practices for proper HVAC maintenance.

Cole has been chosen to serve on the working group as an HVAC and IAQ specialist.

“Every school in every district across the state will have to perform ventilation verification assessments,” Cole said. “That means we are going to need more certified technicians to perform the work. The good news is there can be a lot of cross-training. Many rank-and-file SMART (International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation) members can be easily cross-trained to become certified. We are ready at Local 40 to train them and get them certified to do the work. This legislation provides great opportunities for our workforce, not just in job-hours but to provide a healthier environment for our children.”

The International Certification Board/Testing Adjusting and Balancing Bureau is the first program to gain ANSI (American National Standards Institute) accreditation for certification in the testing, adjusting and balancing industry, which includes ventilation verification and indoor air quality. Certification is a statement that the technician, supervisor and contractor demonstrate the highest level of professional expertise.

Those interested can visit the websites at www.icbcertified.org or www.tabbcertified.org.