scholarly journals Indoor air quality in a preschool

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 007-013
Author(s):  
Dorota Koruba ◽  
Ewa Zender Świercz ◽  
Jerzy Piotrowski ◽  
Łukasz Orman ◽  
Marek Telejko

The article demonstrates the results of research on the indoor air quality (IAQ) in one of chosen preschools. In such facilities, the standard solution is a system of natural ventilation. Only a small percentage of such buildings is equipped with a mechanical ventilation system with adjustable parameters of the microclimate. The article presents the results of indoor air quality in the local preschool located in Kielce. In the present facility natural ventilation system was used. Preliminary studies confirmed the poor quality of indoor air in a subjected building. During the study, two improvements aimed at improving air quality were proposed. The first improvement was to increase the supply air stream. The second one concerned the installation of equipment for the treatment of indoor air. The results indicate that under certain guidelines it is possible to improve indoor air quality. As an indicator of indoor air quality, concentration of carbon dioxide was adopted. In addition, microbiological tests were performed indoors.

Author(s):  
Marek Telejko ◽  
Ewa Zender-Swiercz

Most primary school buildings in Poland rely on natural ventilation. This fact is attributed to the age of these buildings constructed more than dozen or even several tens of years ago. Few of them were fitted with a mechanical ventilation system allowing for the adjustment of microclimate parameters. The national requirements for gravity ventilation provide general guidelines, specifying strict description only for the airtightness of windows and doors and the minimum airflow to be supplied to the rooms. The minimum airflow supplied is independent of the number of occupants and purpose of the room. Low indoor air quality (IAQ) can impact occupants’ health and lead to poor productivity or low academic performance. Therefore the provision of good IAQ in classrooms and laboratories is very important. This paper presents the results of the investigation devoted to the quality of indoor air in classrooms of selected Polish primary school. Six primary school in a town with a population of 200 000 inhabitants were involved in the investigations. The participating school buildings were built between 1976 and 1994 and had gravity ventilation systems. The variability of basic IAQ parameters, i.e., temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide level, was analysed and the assessment of the classrooms in terms of microbiological purity was performed. The outcomes confirmed the low quality of the indoor air in these buildings. The maximum value of CO2 concentration amounted to more than 4000 ppm. Certain modifications aimed at improving IAQ were proposed during the investigations. Two solutions were implemented. The results of this study indicate that the proposed solution offers the potential to improve IAQ within classrooms.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Cezary Kulis ◽  
Jarosław Müller

The aim of the research was to design and validate the prototype of a device developed to improve the quality of indoor air by supporting the natural ventilation in building. A CO2 sensor and thermo-hygrometer were used to measure the physical parameters of the indoor air. The developed device is based on the Raspberry Pi single-board-computer (SBC) and optical sensors. The prototype casing was made using 3D printing technology. The software was written using the Python 2.7 programming language. The key algorithm of control uses fuzzy logic. The effectiveness of the developed device has been confirmed. The use of the device enabled improvement of the indoor air quality. The presented device may be a solution to improve the indoor air quality by supporting the ventilation system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 774-793
Author(s):  
Nur Baitul Izati Rasli ◽  
Nor Azam Ramli ◽  
Mohd Rodzi Ismail

This study observed the influence of different ventilation, indoor and outdoor activities (i.e., cooking, praying, sweeping, gathering, and exhaust from motorcycle) between a bungalow house (i.e., stack and cross ventilation applications) and a terrace house (i.e., one-sided ventilation application). We appraised the indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort. We monitored the indoor air contaminants (i.e., TVOC, CO, CH2O, PM10, O3, and CO2) and specific physical parameters (i.e., T, RH, and AS) for four days in the morning (i.e., 6.00 a.m. – 9.00 a.m.), morning-evening (i.e., 11.00 a.m. – 2.00 p.m.), and evening-night (i.e., 5.00 p.m. – 8.00 p.m.) sessions. The results found that cooking activities are the major activities that contributed to the increase of the TVOC, CO, PM10, O3, and CO2 concentrations in the bungalow and terrace houses. However, IAQ exceeded the Industry Code of Practice on IAQ (ICOP) limit in the terrace house. The bungalow house applies stack and cross ventilation, double area, and a long pathway of indoor air contaminants movements. Besides that, the results indicated that cooking activities worsen the ventilation system because CO2 exceeded the ICOP limit on Day 2 at 74.1 % (evening-night session) and Day 3 at 13.2 % (morning session), 11% (morning-evening session), and 50.1 % (evening-night session). Moreover, the combination of mechanical (i.e., opened all fans) and natural ventilation (i.e., opened all doors, windows, and fans) is the best application in the house without a cooking ventilator with lower indoor air movement. Furthermore, the temperatures exceeding the ICOP limit of 23-26 °C for both bungalow and terrace houses could be lower indoor air movement, which is less than the ICOP limit of 0.15-0.5 m/s and high outdoor air temperature. Therefore, it is prudent to have an efficient ventilation system for acceptable indoor air quality and thermal comfort in the family house.


2012 ◽  
Vol 517 ◽  
pp. 892-896 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Hang Shen ◽  
Nian Ping Li ◽  
Xiao Jia Fan ◽  
Yan Lin Wu ◽  
Yu Zeng Ke

In the newly decorated office premises, the architectural decoration material will release much polluted gas, thus the IAQ is highly concerned. Natural ventilation through open windows can influence the IAQ. To study the effects of opening windows on the indoor air quality of newly decorated office premises, we choose several newly decorated offices in a commercial building in Changsha, a city in hot summer and cold winter region of China, as the study object. The 4 contrastive research schemes in the winter are adopted to acquire the results. Field-testing and air sampling methods were taken respectively to the 4 schemes to measure the concentrations of the main pollution composition such as formaldehyde, ammonia, benzene and TVOC in the offices. Meanwhile, relevant questionnaire surveys towards the four schemes were taken to the staff in the offices. We have synthesized and analyzed the IAQ condition of the 4 research schemes from the results of the tests and surveys. The result of the study shows that: the IAQ is the worst and cannot come up to the national standard when closing windows all day long in the newly decorated offices. Also some staff have a series of adverse reactions working in the work environment for a long time. All the other three schemes can improve the IAQ differently, and the scheme that opening windows all day long can improve the IAQ the best. Meanwhile, people can feel the change of IAQ effected by the 3 ventilation schemes if he/she is working for a long time in the offices.


Author(s):  
Ion-Costinel Mareș ◽  
Tiberiu Catalina ◽  
Marian-Andrei Istrate ◽  
Alexandra Cucoș ◽  
Tiberius Dicu ◽  
...  

The purpose of this article is the assessment of energy efficiency and indoor air quality for a single-family house located in Cluj-Napoca County, Romania. The studied house is meant to be an energy-efficient building with thermal insulation, low U-value windows, and a high efficiency boiler. Increasing the energy efficiency of the house leads to lower indoor air quality, due to lack of natural ventilation. As the experimental campaign regarding indoor air quality revealed, there is a need to find a balance between energy consumption and the quality of the indoor air. To achieve superior indoor air quality, the proposed mitigation systems (decentralized mechanical ventilation with heat recovery combined with a minimally invasive active sub-slab depressurization) have been installed to reduce the high radon level in the dwelling, achieving an energy reduction loss of up to 86%, compared to the traditional natural ventilation of the house. The sub-slab depressurization system was installed in the room with the highest radon level, while the local ventilation system with heat recovery has been installed in the exterior walls of the house. The results have shown significant improvement in the level of radon decreasing the average concentration from 425 to 70 Bq/m 3, respectively the carbon dioxide average of the measurements being around 760 ppm. The thermal comfort improves significantly also, by stabilizing the indoor temperature at 21 °C, without any important fluctuations. The installation of this system has led to higher indoor air quality, with low energy costs and significant energy savings compared to conventional ventilation (by opening windows).


2021 ◽  
Vol 246 ◽  
pp. 01001
Author(s):  
Vegard Heide ◽  
Silje Skyttern ◽  
Laurent Georges

The objective of this work is to investigate the indoor environment in bedrooms ventilated by window opening during night-time. How window opening behaviour affects indoor air quality (IAQ), and how window opening behaviour and IAQ is influenced by external factors, are important questions. The context is renovation of detached wooden houses in Norway. To motivate building owners to renovate their ventilation system, it is important to know the typical indoor environment in bedrooms of existing buildings with natural ventilation. Ten bedrooms in six case houses were investigated by measuring temperature, relative humidity, CO2, particulate matter, formaldehyde and TVOC. The window opening angle was also logged with an accelerometer. The measurements were conducted over 2 to 3 weeks, during March and April. The dwellings were renovated single-family and terraced houses from 1950 – 80, in Trondheim. All the bedrooms had natural ventilation, and the occupants stated they used to open bedroom windows at night. Participants answered a questionnaire about motivations and habits regarding window opening. The most common reason given for not opening was low outdoor temperatures. The window opening behaviour was both predictable and continuous. Windows were open every night in most of the bedrooms, and most of the windows were opened to the same position every night. High CO2 levels during night were found in two bedrooms. In the other bedrooms, the CO2 concentration was satisfying during night-time, although higher concentrations were found in some bedrooms during daytime. Finally, indoor temperature measurements confirmed that many occupants prefer a low bedroom temperature.


2012 ◽  
Vol 518-523 ◽  
pp. 910-913
Author(s):  
Wei Wang ◽  
Zhuang Yu ◽  
Hui Zhang ◽  
Hai Tao Wang

Based on observation of characteristics of NAI concentration of part of an office-building in Shenzhen, air quality of different equipments for cooling were assessed using ion polarity ratio (q) and air ion assessment index (CI). The result show that the air cleanness degree of the natural ventilation indoor is better than mechanical ventilation, using renewable energy for cooling is better than normal air-conditioning, and placed the negative ion generator has improved indoor air quality significantly. So the authors suggest to take NAI concentration as a monitoring and assessment indicators of the indoor environment, so as to provide a scientific basis and design concept for energy planning and environmental protection in the future.


2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 067-074
Author(s):  
Marek Telejko ◽  
Ewa Zender – Świercz ◽  
Jerzy Piotrowski

The applicable legislation connected with the natural ventilation are ambiguous and sometimes contradictory. This leads to serious problems with natural ventilation. In most cases malfunction of the natural ventilation is due to the insufficient stream of air from the outside. The research showed that the microclimate is influenced not only by the incoming air stream, but also by the layout of the air supply.


Author(s):  
Abayomi Layeni ◽  
Collins Nwaokocha ◽  
Olalekan Olamide ◽  
Solomon Giwa ◽  
Samuel Tongo ◽  
...  

The level of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) has become a big topic of research, and improving it using passive ventilation methods is imperative due to the cost saving potentials. Designing lecture buildings to use less energy or Zero Energy (ZE) has become more important, and analysing buildings before construction can save money in design changes. This research analyses the performance (thermal comfort [TC]) of a lecture room, investigate the use of passive ventilation methods and determine the energy-saving potential of the proposed passive ventilation method using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Results obtained showed that air change per hour at a wind velocity of 0.05 m/s was 3.10, which was below standards. Therefore, the lecture hall needs external passive ventilation systems (Solar Chimney [SC]) for improved indoor air quality at minimum cost. Also, it was observed that the proposed passive ventilation (SC) system with the size between 1 and 100 m3, made an improvement upon the natural ventilation in the room. There was a 66.69% increase after 10 years in the saving of energy and cost using Solar Chimney as compared to Fans, which depicts that truly energy and cost were saved using passive ventilation systems rather than mechanical ventilation systems.


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