Abstract. Measurements of temporal and spatial changes to indoor contaminant concentrations are vital to understanding pollution characteristics. Whilst scientific instruments provide high temporal resolution of indoor pollutants, their cost and complexity make them unfeasible for large-scale projects. Low-cost monitors offer an opportunity to collect high-density temporal and spatial data in a broader range of households. This paper presents a user study to assess the precision, accuracy, and usability of a low-cost indoor air quality monitor in a residential environment to collect data about the indoor pollution. Temperature, relative humidity, total volatile organic compounds (tVOC), carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) data were measured with five low-cost (“Foobot”) monitors and were compared with data from other monitors reported to be scientifically validated. The study found a significant agreement between the instruments with regard to temperature, relative humidity, total volatile organic compounds, and fine particulate matter data. Foobot CO2 equivalent was found to provide misleading CO2 levels as indicators of ventilation. Calibration equations were derived for tVOC, CO2, and PM2.5 to improve sensors' accuracy. The data were analysed based on the percentage of time pollutant levels that exceeded WHO thresholds. The performance of low-cost monitors to measure total volatile organic compounds and particulate matter 2.5 µm has not been properly addressed. The findings suggest that Foobot is sufficiently accurate for identifying high pollutant exposures with potential health risks and for providing data at high granularity and good potential for user or scientific applications due to remote data retrieval. It may also be well suited to remote and larger-scale studies in quantifying exposure to pollutants.
This research investigates the impact on energy use of the different ways in which office spaces can be organised and used. It explores typical UK office layouts, utilisation densities and intensities on a good practice-base case shell. This is achieved using the TAS, Lightscape and Excel software packages. For the average occupancy of 50%, the analysis indicates that the variations in combined thermal and lighting loads are 19% and 51% during the UK peak winter and summer respectively. The respective per capita load variations are 80% and 16%. The analysis demonstrates that space planning and utilisation have significant impacts on energy use and are important in assessing energy performance.
Climate change and sustainability legislation in recent years has led to significant changes in construction approaches in the UK housing sector. This has resulted in the adoption of new building typologies, including the German Passivhaus (Passive House) standard. This standard aims to improve occupant comfort and energy efficiency, potentially changing the ways in which homes operate and how occupants interact with them. With increasing construction of low energy dwellings, there is an emerging gap in knowledge in relation to occupant health and wellbeing, thermal comfort, and indoor air quality (IAQ). Using data collected from a two year Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) study funded by Innovate UK, the environmental data (temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide concentrations) from five Certified Passive House homes in Scotland was compared. The results demonstrate problems with overheating with peak temperatures exceeding 30˝C. Imbalanced mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) systems were identified in 80% of the dwellings and inadequate IAQ was found due to poor ventilation. Only one of the Passive Houses studied exhibited thermal conditions and IAQ which were, on the whole within Passive House parameters. This paper outlines the insights and the main issues of Scottish Passive House in the broader context of sustainability.
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