Indoor Air Quality: Potential Audit Strategies

Conference · Tue Mar 17 04:00:00 EST 1981

OSTI ID:6594790

Traynor, Greg W. ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL), Berkeley, CA (United States); University of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

Energy-conserving measures to reduce infiltration rates in buildings can lead to elevated levels of indoor-generated air contaminants capable of impairing the health and/or comfort of occupants. Typical indoor contaminants include gaseous and particulate pollutants from indoor combustion processes (such as cooking, heating, and tobacco smoke), toxic chemicals, odors, and odor-masking chemicals from cleaning activities, odors and viable micro-organisms from humans, and a wide assortment of other chemicals released from ground soil, construction materials, and furnishings. Any residential energy-conserving retrofit program should include an indoor air quality audit in order to protect the occupants from being exposed to excessively high levels of such pollutants. Carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, radon and particulates are five significant pollutants found indoors that should be addressed in an indoor air quality audit. The basic audit strategy proposed in this paper would minimize the number of actual on-site pollutant measurements. This approach is efficiently accomplished in two steps. First, compile an inventory of indoor pollutant sources (through an owner questionnaire or visual audit) and assess the amount of pollutants injected into the home from "known" sources — sources with a narrow range of emission rates (e.g., gas stoves). Second, measure the pollutant source strengths of "unknown" sources — sources with emission rates that vary widely (e.g., radon). This strategy suggests that future research should be directed toward characterizing the pollutant emission rates of all indoor sources and developing reliable field techniques to characterize unknown sources.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 6594790
• Report Number(s): LBL--12387; CONF-810370-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320101* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Residential Buildings-- (-1987)
AEROSOLS
AIR INFILTRATION
AIR POLLUTION
AIR QUALITY
ALDEHYDES
AUDITS
BUILDINGS
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBON MONOXIDE
CARBON OXIDES
CHALCOGENIDES
COLLOIDS
DISPERSIONS
ELEMENTS
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
FLOW RATE
FLUIDS
FORMALDEHYDE
GASES
HAZARDS
HEALTH HAZARDS
INDOOR AIR POLLUTION
INVENTORIES
MATERIALS
MEASURING METHODS
NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
NITROGEN DIOXIDE
NITROGEN OXIDES
NONMETALS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PARTICLES
POLLUTION
RADON
RARE GASES
RECOMMENDATIONS
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
SOILS
SOLS
VENTILATION
air pollution
air quality
audits
carbon monoxide
energy conservation
formaldehyde
indoor dioxide
infiltration
nitrogen radon
particulates
ventilation.