How to Monitor Air Quality at Your Premises

Summary: The quality of the air inside your home is very important to the health of you and your family. Poor quality indoor air can result in many negative health effects, including breathing disorders, respiratory ailments and more.

Air quality monitoring is necessary to determine the condition of ambient gases. Ambient air, for instance, is the air that we, living things, breathe. Its quality and content is directly affected by our activities. Likewise, it directly affects our health as well as the welfare of the ecosystems on Earth.

Industrial and chemical pollutants

The composition of air is usually altered by the release of industrial and chemical pollutants into the atmosphere. Each time someone manufactures or burns fossil fuels, the ambient air becomes affected. Aside from these, ambient air is also affected by dirt and dust particles, ashes, pollen, smoke, and other tiny elements.

Air exposure assessment is required to set standards and monitor the air quality. This is so human beings as well as animal and plants can benefit from clean air and be free of diseases caused by air pollution. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards has tracked six pollutants: ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide.

These pollutants have an adverse effect on living creatures. For each of them, data are gathered and compared to the ambient air quality standards. Such standards are regularly updated. They indicate the maximum safe level for every pollutant; and if the pollutant exceeds a certain level, it will start to produce an unfavorable impact to people as well as the environment.

Air quality monitoring program

Communities should address the quality problem in case they have exceeded the parameters. They can pass legislations to encourage citizens to help keep the air clean. They can engage in activities that will help save the environment and keep the atmosphere protected. They can also make use of low cost monitoring techniques as well as passive samplers. Nonetheless, another way to protect the quality of air is to develop an air quality monitoring program.

Dispersion modelling program involves the collection of air samples for specific purposes including judging compliance with progress made toward meeting the standards, and activating emergency control processes that alleviate or prevent episodes of air pollution. It also aims to observe trends in pollution throughout different regions, provide a database for research effect evaluation, develop and evaluate abatement strategies, and develop and validate diffusion models.

Measurement of numerous air pollutants

The measurement of numerous air pollutants in specific locations is involved in the ambient air quality monitoring network. Different places in the country are observed in order to determine whether the air in these places meet the objectives of the network. Pollutants, location, frequency, sampling techniques, sampling duration, manpower, maintenance and operation costs, and infrastructural facilities are factors that affect the results.

Control Sources Of Air Pollution

One of the most efficient ways to improve the quality of the air inside the home is to maintain control of any air pollution sources that could contaminate the interior air. Control methods include the elimination of harmful contaminants (such as asbestos), reducing emission levels by reducing the usage of combustion sources (such as wood burning fireplaces, gas-fueled stoves, or smoking tobacco products) within the home, and using high quality air filters near emission sources to quickly remove pollutants from the air. Controlling sources of air pollution is viewed as one of the most cost effective ways to maintain good indoor air quality because it rarely increases energy costs.

Improve Ventilation in the Home

Another method used to improve indoor air quality is improving the ventilation of the home so that contaminated air is removed and replaced with fresh air on a routine basis. Many types of home heating and cooling systems simply recycle the air that is inside the home without adding fresh air from outside the home, allowing levels of contaminants to build up until they reach levels that can be harmful to your health. Opening windows in the home during nice weather and operating window or attic fans can improve ventilation in the home by a significant amount.

Make Use Of Exhaust Portals

Many of the areas in the home that routinely create indoor air contaminants are equipped with exhaust portals that remove them from the room where the portal is located. For example, kitchen exhaust portals can typically be found above the stove to remove smoke and cooking odors from the kitchen before they can spread to the rest of the home. Most bathrooms are equipped with exhaust portals and fans to remove smells and other contaminants. Using these exhaust portals can also increase ventilation in the home by replacing the air removed from the home with fresh air from outdoors.