Lighting in Residential and Public Buildings: Major Challenges and Improvement of Control Methods

Abstract

Introduction: The increase in time people spent in rooms of various functional purposes makes special demands on the quality of artificial lighting, which increasingly compensates for the lack of daylight. In 2021, Russian Sanitary Regulations and Standards SanPiN 1.2.3685-21 came into force setting new requirements for qualitative and quantitative characteristics of artificial lighting in residential and public buildings, thus necessitating improvement of instrumental control methods. Objective: To develop and substantiate requirements pertaining to organization of instrumental control, procedure and conditions for measuring lighting indicators in the premises of residential and public buildings in order to control their compliance with the updated hygienic standards. Materials and methods: We reviewed 17 regulatory documents and guidelines containing the requirements for illumination and measurement of its parameters and analyzed more than 30 proposals for lighting assessment received from 28 territorial bodies and institutions of the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor). We also considered ten main issues concerning instrumental control of lighting suggested for discussion at the meetings on activities and assignments of physical laboratories of Rospotrebnadzor Centers for Hygiene and Epidemiology in 2018–2020 and issues of illumination measurement and assessment in different types of buildings posing challenge for specialists of the Inspection Body in the course of sanitary and epidemiological expert examination of measurement results. Results: We have determined method approaches to organizing and taking measurements of lighting indicators and specified the choice of monitored parameters, measuring points and conditions. Conclusion: When developing guidelines for measuring and assessing lighting inside and outside residential and public buildings, it is necessary to systematize the requirements of valid method documents, eliminate existing contradictions, and determine the choice of indicators, measuring points and conditions to be monitored.