How Can Airthings Transform Your Business?
Andy Potter • April 26, 2023

Ensuring good indoor air quality is more important than ever. However, many buildings lack sufficient tools for proper air quality monitoring. We spend 90% of our day indoors and almost 25% of our week at work. It’s for this reason that building air quality is so important in the workplace. Poor indoor air quality can lead to a number of problems. Pollutants and germs lingering in the air can build up over time and become a health risk when inhaled. This can be a real problem in workplaces, where people spend much of their time. 


The more polluted your building’s air, the more likely employees will have to take time off due to illness, which is something all employers will want to avoid if they can. Thankfully, you can tackle this problem and prevent poor quality air from being an issue for your business. We will look at how clean air can benefit a business and how Airthings can help your workplace be a safer, more optimised working environment. 


Why Is Air Quality So Important?

The air we breathe is directly linked to the health of our bodies. For that reason, the importance of monitoring the quality of that air is essential for ensuring it is not negatively affecting not just our respiratory health but our overall health as well. Indoor air quality is often recycled and generally of poorer quality than outdoor air. This means that being cooped up inside a factory or office environment for 8 hours a day can become an issue if your air quality is not monitored. You could even be liable if one of your employees becomes ill as a result of poor building air quality.


How Can It Affect Your Business?

Poor air quality poses particular problems for a business as it can affect productivity and employee health. Research conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health looking at air quality in various workplace environments found that poor ventilation and increased particle matter were directly linked to reduced accuracy, poor response times, and overall impaired cognitive function. Poor ventilation often occurs in offices where there is less of a focus on building air quality. Exposure to increased particulates over a prolonged period of time can trigger illnesses such as asthma, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and even lung cancer. 


Typical Causes of Poor Building Air Quality

The primary cause of poor air quality is the lack of sufficient ventilation. This is particularly common in older converted buildings and high-rise office blocks without air conditioning or opening windows. Environments with little to no ventilation increase the impact of other poor air quality contributors becoming a problem, such as:


  • Dust
  • Furnishings
  • Cleaning products
  • Air fresheners
  • Microbial contaminants
  • Tobacco smoke/ e-cigarette vapour


If your work environment has no means of circulating the air, rooms can quickly become stuffy as the air becomes filled with various contaminants. Most newly built workplaces should already have
a good quality ventilation system in place, but even if this is the case, air quality should still be monitored to ensure safety.


Benefits Of Airthings For Air Quality Monitoring

If you are wondering how you can monitor and optimise your building’s air quality, then you need a product that can perform 24/7 in real-time. Regular air quality monitoring can protect your employees from harmful particles in the air while also boosting productivity and output levels. Taking control of the air in your office, school, or other commercial building can help you ensure the environment is safe. 


Airthings is a revolutionary technology
that enables you to monitor the air quality in your building remotely. It records both live and historical air quality data so you can look at changes over time. Better air quality means happier and healthier employees. With regular air quality readings, results have shown a 58% reduction in employee sick leave and a 101% increase in decision making ability. Other benefits of Airthings include:


  • Insights and tips based on your air quality
  • Real-time and historical air quality data
  • Measures 13 air quality factors (including CO2, PM2.5, humidity virus and mold risk & radon)
  • Easily installation
  • Better physical health
  • Scalable to any building/ room size
  • Wellness & sustainability certification
  • Helps optimise your energy consumption


Why Air Quality Is a Priority For Businesses

No matter what your industry, air quality monitoring is essential if you want to maximise your day to day operations and improve efficiency. By monitoring your CO2, temperature, humidity, and radon levels, you can actively improve the health of those working in your building. Installing effective air quality measuring devices shows employees that you care about their health while boosting their overall work performance. 


All businesses should be looking at ways they can minimise their environmental impact. One of the best ways to do this is by monitoring the pollution levels your facilities produce in the air and improving energy efficiency. Airthings will help to improve the number of pollutants in your workspace and make your building operations more sustainable.


Improve Your Air Quality With Airthings Business Solution

If you want to improve your business’ air quality, then it is essential that you invest in a good air quality monitoring solution. Airthings will revolutionise not just the air quality in your building but also the health and productivity of your employees and improve overall energy efficiency. Ultra can supply and install an Airthings air monitoring solution for your business so you can take control of your indoor air quality. You will receive real-time data to easily pinpoint and troubleshoot any potential air quality issues. If you want to get started, you can book an air quality assessment with a member of our Ultra team.


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By Ultra Protect • September 22, 2026
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If you're responsible for health and safety in your workplace, you've probably encountered the terms "workplace exposure level," "TWA," and "STEL." But what do they actually mean, and why do they matter for dust management? The simple answer: these are legal limits set by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to protect workers from harmful dust exposure. If you're not monitoring them, you're flying blind and potentially breaking the law. What is Workplace Exposure Level? A workplace exposure level (WEL) is the maximum amount of a harmful substance that a worker can be exposed to during their working day without suffering adverse health effects. For dust, it's measured in milligrams per cubic metre of air (mg/m³). The HSE sets these limits based on scientific evidence about how different dust types affect human health. Different dusts have different exposure limits because they pose different risks. For example, the WEL for respirable crystalline silica is far stricter than for general inert dust, because silica is significantly more harmful to the lungs. Think of it this way: the WEL is your compliance baseline. If dust concentrations in your workplace stay below this limit, you're meeting your legal obligation. If they exceed it, you have a duty to investigate why and take corrective action. Download the HSEs guidance on workplace exposure limits If you want to understand the levels in your workplace contact us about our silica air sampling services TWA: The 8-Hour Average TWA stands for Time-Weighted Average, and it's the most commonly referenced exposure limit. The TWA measures the average concentration of a substance over a standard 8-hour working day. Here's why that matters: dust exposure isn't constant. Workers might face high concentrations during certain activities (cutting, grinding, demolition) and lower concentrations during others. The TWA accounts for these fluctuations by averaging them out over the full shift. This recognises that workers can tolerate brief periods of higher exposure, provided the average stays within acceptable limits. For example, the current WEL for respirable crystalline silica is 0.1 mg/m³ as an 8-hour TWA. This means that if a construction worker is grinding stone for part of their shift but doing lower-dust tasks for the rest, the daily average should not exceed this level. The advantage of TWA is that it's practical for real-world work. Few jobs maintain constant dust levels. The disadvantage is that it can mask dangerous peaks, if a worker is exposed to very high concentrations for a short period, the TWA might still look acceptable. STEL: The Short-Term Exposure Limit STEL stands for Short-Term Exposure Limit, and it's your safety net for peak exposures. A STEL is the maximum concentration a worker should experience during any 15-minute period in a working day, and no more than four such periods should occur, with at least 60 minutes between them. The STEL exists precisely because the TWA can obscure dangerous peaks. Imagine a worker exposed to very high silica dust for 15 minutes whilst cutting stone, then lower levels for the rest of the day. The TWA might be within limits, but those 15 minutes could still cause significant lung damage. There should be a maximum of 4 STEL's in a single working day and there must be at least 60-minutes between each STEL period. Not all dusts have a STEL, but those that do (like respirable crystalline silica) reflect a recognition that short, intense exposures carry genuine health risks that the 8-hour average doesn't capture. Reducing personal exposure to inhalable dust with Cleanspace Respirators