DDOE: Radon and Indoor Air Quality P2

The IAQ aspect of the Radon/IAQ program has reached hundreds of residents throughout the city. The program averages approximately sixty calls per month, most of which are residential complaints about mold contamination in their home. Several of these calls maintain that occupants (often children) have asthma, which necessitates an inspection from persons with a health or industrial hygiene background. Other calls relate to questions and concerns about IAQ, which include unidentifiable and strange odors, identifiable odors and Legionella. Radon/IAQ program staff has successfully responded to each of these calls and with the use of instrumentation, been able to detect:

Moisture within building materials
Volatile organic compounds (VOC)
       - Carbon monoxide (CO)
       - Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)
       - Natural gas
       - Hydrogen Sulfide (H₂S - Sewer gas)
Particulate Matter (particles in the air) at the 0.3µm - 5.0 µm (µm = micrograms per meter) sizes.

Instruments that are being used include:

Hand-held moisture meter
Photo ionizing detector (PID) for VOC's (at the parts per billion range - pbb)
CO2 detector (parts per million -ppm)
Four-gas meter (CO, Oxygen deficiency, H₂S and explosive gases) ppm
Hand-held particle counter
IAQRae (VOC's, temperature, CO, CO₂ and Relative Humidity or RH)
Hand-held hygrometer (temperature and RH)
Stud finder
Laser distance measurer
Laser thermometer

These instruments enable staff to quantify and qualify indoor contamination and determine causes as well as possible remedies.

Program staff also has additional instruments that are more sensitive, such as the HAPSITE, GC/MS, which is a field-portable device that can detect VOC's at the parts per billion (ppb) level and the MIRAN SAPPHIRE AMBIENT AIR ANALYZER ®, which also detects VOC's at the ppb level and can identify hundreds of air contaminants.

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