A Comparison of Indoor Air Quality in Conventional and Model Conservation Standard New Homes in the Pacific Northwest : Final Report.

Technical Report · Sat Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1988

OSTI ID:6667774

Turk, Bradley H

Ventilation and indoor air quality measurements have been made in 61 new houses located in two regions of the Pacific Northwest. Twenty-nine houses built to Model Conservation Standards (MCS) were compared to 32 Control houses, i.e., new houses built using conventional practices in the region. The MCS houses met the objective of having significantly reduced air leakage area. Yet their total ventilation rate (infiltration plus mechanical ventilation supplied by air-to-air heat exchangers) was the same as the infiltration rate observed in the sample of Control houses. These ventilation rates in both samples were about 0.3 ach. Indoor pollutant concentrations were observed to be only poorly correlated with ventilation rates, an indication that other variables including pollutant source strengths and occupancy effects may be important. Pollutant measurements made in both samples revealed that 11% of the houses exceeded the BPA mitigation action level of 5 pCi/l for radon concentrations, while 16% exceeded the EPA guideline of 4 pCi/l. Thirty percent of the total houses exceed the 100 ppB formaldehyde guideline adopted by many organizations. Indoor pollutant concentrations were seen to vary more between geographic regions than between the two types of house construction. 40 refs., 27 figs., 4 tabs.

• Research Organization: USDOE Bonneville Power Administration, Portland, OR. Div. of Resource Management; Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AI79-83BP12921; AC03-76SF00098
• OSTI ID: 6667774
• Report Number(s): DOE/BP-12921-1; ON: DE89003790
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320107* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Building Systems-- (1987-)
AIR INFILTRATION
AIR POLLUTION
AIR POLLUTION MONITORING
AIR QUALITY
ALDEHYDES
BUILDINGS
DOCUMENT TYPES
ELEMENTS
ENERGY CONSERVATION
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
FLUIDS
FORMALDEHYDE
GASES
HOUSES
INDOOR AIR POLLUTION
Indoor air pollution - Physiological effect
NONMETALS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
POLLUTION
PROGRESS REPORT
RADON
RARE GASES
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
VENTILATION