garth_meringue t1_j5brmn7 wrote on January 21, 2023 at 9:19 PM

Reply to comment by pixel_of_moral_decay in New neighbors cook Indian food every night. Whole hallway smells like an Indian restaurant all the time. What can we dooooooo by [deleted]

I meant the hallway should be positively pressurized, not the unit. Usually that's the case, but maybe there's an issue that can be checked with management. It would also help if both units would exhaust more air (negative pressure).

pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j5bxv20 wrote on January 21, 2023 at 10:03 PM

That's just cost cutting. Ideally the unit is positively pressured so in the event of a fire smoke isn't being pushed into units. Especially at night when people are sleeping that steals evacuation time before smoke can overwhelm occupants.

Positive pressure in hallways was a way to ventilate with less investment in mechanical systems. Simple as that. Which in the covid era has proven especially harmful since it's not as simple as a filter/airblower upgrade to beef up air filtration like we've seen in Asia. In the event of a fire alarm being triggered they go into overdrive exhausting to keep air quality in the hallways clear for people to evacuate. In the US we just do that in stairwells if the building is big enough. Again: cost cutting.

But virtually all buildings prohibit anything that changes how ventilation works beyond opening a window. Window fans, even those plastic thermal barriers people do in the winter to stop drafts are generally not allowed if you look at leases or HOA rules. People think it's aesthetics, but it's because it would cause more air to stagnate in adjacent units.