Geographic patterns of non-carpeted floor dust loading in Syracuse, New York (USA) homes

Abstract

Residential floor dust loading was measured on the smooth floor surface of 488 houses in Syracuse, New York, during the summers of 2003 and 2004. Using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wipe methods, pre-weighed Ghost Wipes, Lead Wipes, or Whatman Filters were employed to collect duplicate samples from (predominantly) kitchens. The collection efficiency of the various media was determined from multiple wipe tests and side-by-side comparisons. The results were normalized and aggregated at the census tract level to determine whether spatial patterns of dust loading could be observed. Loading was found to be log-normally distributed, with a geometric mean value of 0.311 g m(-2) (29 mg of dust per square foot of floor); 95% of the observations fell in the range of 0.042-2.330 g m(-2) (4-216 mg foot(-2)). The sampling for floor dust loading shows some bias for day of the week in which visits to the residential properties were made. After a first-order correction for this effect, results were aggregated by census tract and mapped in a geographic information system (GIS); strong spatial patterns can be identified in an inverse distance weighted mapping. The geographic patterns exhibit a strong correlation with socio-economic/demographic covariates extracted from the 2000 census summaries. Dust mass on the floors is positively correlated with renter-occupied properties and family size; it is negatively correlated with measures of household income.

Soil ingestion rates for children under 3 years old in Taiwan

“…Kuo et al 24 had shown the average household dust loadings in Taiwanese households were 0.0603 and 0.0382 mg/m 2 for exposure and control site, respectively. These were an order of magnitude smaller than the household dust loadings measured in the US homes [31][32][33] (geometric means were 0.28-0.42 g/m 2 ). This is because in Taiwan and most other Asian countries residents usually take off their shoes before entering their home.…”

Monolayer and Multilayer Particle Deposits on Hard Surfaces: Literature Review and Implications for Particle Resuspension in the Indoor Environment

“…However, in cases where an occupant does not frequently clean their flooring, multilayer deposits may form, as may be the case for some of the higher dust loads reported in Table 1, including values reported by EPA (1996), Rich et al (1999), Rao et al (2005), Lewis et al (2006), Johnson et al (2009), andHoh et al (2012). As discussed in Franke et al (1997), routine housekeeping and floor cleaning can prevent the accumulation of particles on hard flooring, maintaining dust loads below levels of 0.08 g/m 2 .…”

“…Dust loads reported by Thatcher and Layton (1995), Franke et al (1997), Salares et al (2009), andRaja et al (2010) were classified as monolayer deposits. Field studies by Adgate et al (1995), Rich et al (1999), Rao et al (2005), Lewis et al (2006), Johnson et al (2009), Layton and Beamer (2009), and Hoh et al (2012 reported ranges of dust loads that likely include both monolayer and multilayer deposits. The range of dust loads can be attributed to the frequency of floor cleaning or the number of particle sources indoors, among other factors.…”

“…On the surfaces of ventilation ducts, dust loads can range from less than 1 g/m 2 to loads in excess of 100 g/m 2 (Nielson et al 1990;Laatikainen et al 1991;Pasanen et al 1992;EPA 1996;Fortmann et al 1997;Möritz et al 2001;Kolari et al 2005;Lavoie et al 2011). On hard flooring, such as vinyl, linoleum, and hardwood, dust loading is typically in the range of 0.1-1 g/m 2 , although lighter and heavier dust loads are commonly reported (Adgate et al 1995;Rao et al 2005;Johnson et al 2009;Hoh et al 2012). The wide range of dust loads suggests that there can exist different types of particle deposits on indoor surfaces, including both monolayer and multilayer deposits (Tovey and Ferro 2012).…”

A first generation dynamic ingress, redistribution and transport model of soil track-in: DIRT

“…With a subset of these results, values reported by Yiin et al (2000) indicate the ratio, R rt to range of 11.1 during the hot season to 24-25 during cool and cold periods; again, the GSD values for the measures were approximately 3.0. For the soil and dust study in Syracuse, NY, (Johnson et al 2005(Johnson et al , 2008 98 vacuum cleaner dust samples were collected from 61 different households during the summers of 2003 and 2004 by the method of Watt et al (1983). The GM value of R rt for those 61 residences was 11.3 (3.6-36, at GSD of 0.5).…”