A comparison of indoor air quality in conventional and model conservation standard new homes in the Pacific Northwest: Final report to the Bonneville Power Administration

Technical Report · Tue Sep 15 04:00:00 EDT 1987

OSTI ID:7174125

Turk, B H; Grimsrud, D T; Harrison, J; Prill, R J

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 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 0.03 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 EPA guideline of 4 pCi/l. Thirty percent of the total houses exceed the 100 ppB formaldehyde guidelines adopted by many organizations. Indoor pollutant concentrations were seen to vary more between geographic regions than between the two types of house construction. 41 refs., 27 figs., 4 tabs.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00098; AI79-83BP12921
• OSTI ID: 7174125
• Report Number(s): LBL-23429; ON: DE88014061
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290300 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Environment
Health
& Safety
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320107* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Building Systems-- (1987-)
500600 -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Regulations-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR POLLUTION MONITORING
AIR QUALITY
ALDEHYDES
BUILDINGS
CHALCOGENIDES
DATA
DOCUMENT TYPES
ELEMENTS
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FLUIDS
FORMALDEHYDE
GASES
INFORMATION
MEASURING METHODS
NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
NITROGEN DIOXIDE
NITROGEN OXIDES
NONMETALS
NUMERICAL DATA
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PROGRESS REPORT
RADON
RARE GASES
REGULATIONS
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
STANDARDS
VENTILATION
VENTILATION SYSTEMS