Category: CIVIL 460 Course – 2021-2022
AIR HUMIDITY AND INDOOR AIR QUALITY
Author: Antonio García Have you ever felt short of breath? Your chest tightens and your respiratory rates increases sharply, Despite all your attempts to increase the inhaled air, it is not enough to support your needs. As exorbitant this narrative might sound, polluted air increases the difficulty to breathe properly. Yet we do not give (…)
Challenges in Monitoring Building IAQ: what and where to measure
Author: Cheng-Hua Huang Introduction Have you ever experienced that in the morning, your eyes, nose and/or throat got irritated? You felt fatigued, even though you just had a 10-hour sleep and woke up at 10 am. You felt dizzy, got a headache and even had a feeling of nausea. It seems like you never got (…)
Indoor Air Pollution in Wooden Construction Buildings
Author: Lea Mayr Sustainable buildings made of wood with a good indoor climate and positive life cycle assessment, but what about air quality? Wood is a building material that has become increasingly popular in recent years. This is due to many advantages that the natural raw material brings with it. Thanks to a high degree (…)
Flame retardants: Friends or Foes
Author: Enea Rossetti Introduction Fire has been one of the most revolutionary discoveries for human beings. It immediately became something of great value for humans. It gave protection, for example from cold, but also from enemies and predators. Today the opinion about fire is very different, almost the opposite. People in principle are afraid of (…)
Low-Cost Sensing of Indoor Air Quality – Is This a Future?
Author: Thomas Zonabend Have you ever noticed the time you spend indoor? In fact, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans spend 87% of their life in buildings[1]. And this data is from 1989, so one may conclude it has increased since. It means that someone that is 80 years old will have (…)
Environmental Tobacco Smoke
Author: Cedric Welt We’ve all been there: enjoying a nice time out with friends or family when, as usual, someone decides to light up a cigarette. Depending on the country you’re in and the rules in place, this person may even be lighting up in an indoor environment like a restaurant or bar. At this (…)
Do Green-Certified Buildings Have Better Indoor Air Quality?
Author: Paula Berentzen Ecologically and economically sustainable building has become more and more prominent in the last years. Just recently, I planned a trip to New York. Of course, while planning, I were on the website of the Empire State Building (ESB), one of New York’s most popular landmarks. There, I stumbled across the “Sustainability” (…)
Indoor Exposure to Fine Particulate Matter and Practical Mitigation Approaches
Author: Maxime Dunod We can define particulate matter (PM) as a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets found in the air. PM can originate from two major sources, Primary, that is to say, indoor and outdoor direct sources, and secondary sources, meaning PM is formed by atmospheric reactions. The exposition to PM can have (…)
Indoor Radon: Sources, Exposures, Health Effects and Controls
Author: Luc Matthieu Alberti Do you smell it ? That radioactive but noble smell tingling your senses as it is coming up from your basement and your Geiger counter crackles faster and faster. It surrounds you quickly and you cannot fight it… You ask yourself: “why me ?” “How did it get in my home?” (…)