It goes beyond the cooking stove: The quantum of Indoor Air Pollution may be critically dependent upon the nature, structure and quality of construction, says a new research that compared 'sustainable homes' with a normally constructed home in Tamil Nadu over an extended period of time. A sustainable home is built with pyramidal shape of roof in the rural area.
A paper, Studies on Indoor Air Quality in a Rural Sustainable Home authored by S. Palanivelraja and K. I. Manirathinem of Annamalai University in the journal World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology records indoor air quality in a sustainable rural house built in Vilathur village located at Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, India, 15 km off Chidambaram and compares it with the other houses in the village. The sustainable house was made with fly ash bricks and had better air quality and natural light. The design was pyramidal which provided better inflow of sunlight. Most of the 116 existing houses in Vilathur were of thatched roof with unburnt brick walls, 11 of them were made with reinforced cement concrete while only few houses were tiled.
Measurements of indoor and outdoor carbon monoxide (CO), Carbon Dioxide (ppm CO2), Temperature (°F/°C), Dew Point Temperature, Absolute Humidity, Wet Bulb Temperature and Relative Humidity (%RH) concentrations were conducted at the sustainable home using DirectSense™.
The comparative study of the sustainable home and a regular home showed that the IAP concentration levels were higher in the latter. After a statistical analysis was done, the research arrived at a correlation between indoor concentration levels with outdoor concentrations of CO and CO2. Indoor and outdoor CO and CO2 concentrations showed a significant positive correlation except in the kitchen for CO2. The results suggests that during winter, outdoor CO sources are not responsible for increase in indoor concentrations but indoor sources like burning of wood, smoking, etc. will affect the concentrations. In this study area where CO and CO2 concentration were maximum in indoor due to cooking in the kitchen which in turn affected the living room concentration. The study was also conducted in different seasons to find out the pollution levels. It showed that in winter months the concentration of CO is higher and leads to health hazard.
While concluding that indoor and outdoor pollutants in the sustainable houses in Cuddalore were much lesser than in the existing rural home, the paper suggests that a long-term database of the pollutants levels in indoor air in India will help decision makers formulate and implement policies. The authors say that the sustainable home concept can be extended to all rural people and a better living condition can be created for rural India as they are the back bone of Indian agriculture.
Read the paper: Studies on Indoor Air Quality in a Rural Sustainable Home.
