Indoor Air Quality

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Pollutant Sources

Some of the pollution that enters your home may be self-inflicted. Turbulence around a building can force the exhaust fumes of your or your neighbour's chimney back into your home. The Australian town of Armidale thought they were lucky when the University of New England established their campus in town. They should have known - with it comes knowledge. In this case, the university conducted a study on the pollution levels during winter when the majority of households fire-up their wood-burning stoves. During the cold season, the researchers found, the levels of particulate matter, in this otherwise clean-air town, reaches levels ten times as high as that of 'dirty' metropolitan Sydney. Now the citizens have something to worry about.

You still haven't cleaned-up the garbage near your back door? Unsanitary debris is another source of unwanted odours and gases that may enter and mix with indoor air. Standing water and damp areas around or underneath the house are the breeding grounds for bacteria and fungi - not all of them harmless.

While on the subject underneath the house, the soil on which your home is built can be an outside source of indoor air pollution. Leaking underground storage tanks or pesticide-treated soil may regularly or occasionally emit toxic fumes. Radon, a natural radioactive gas has been recognised as a major contributor to lung cancer. Similarly to the entry of air contaminants, soil gases drift through cracks or joints in foundations, squeeze along gaps around service pipes or may be present in the water supply.

Global air circulation ensures that industrial and vehicle fumes containing hazardous sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter or ozone have become an international problem. Even if you don't live near a factory or near a highway, wind can carry a mixture of toxic gas and particles from an industrial region into your backyard. And, depending on the atmospheric conditions at the time, the substances may even arrive undiluted. Outdoor air also contains natural pollution, such as dust, sand and the dreaded tree or grass pollen.

Outdoor Pollution