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      An Investigation into Indoor Radon Concentrations in Certified Passive House Homes

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          Abstract

          The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) has introduced the concept of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) specifying that by 31 December 2020 all new buildings must meet the nearly zero- energy standard, the Passive House standard has emerged as a key enabler for the Nearly Zero Energy Building standard. The combination of Passive House with renewables represents a suitable solution to move to low/zero carbon. The hypothesis in this study is that a certified passive house building with high levels of airtightness with a balanced mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) should yield lower indoor radon concentrations. This article presents results and analysis of measured radon levels in a total of 97 certified passive house dwellings using CR-39 3 alpha track diffusion radon gas detectors. The results support the hypothesis that certified passive house buildings present lower radon levels. A striking observation to emerge from the data shows a difference in radon distribution between upstairs and downstairs when compared against regular housing. The study is a first for Ireland and the United Kingdom and it has relevance to a much wider context with the significant growth of the passive house standard globally.

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          The National Human Activity Pattern Survey (NHAPS): a resource for assessing exposure to environmental pollutants.

          N E Klepeis, W C Nelson, W R Ott … (2001)
          Because human activities impact the timing, location, and degree of pollutant exposure, they play a key role in explaining exposure variation. This fact has motivated the collection of activity pattern data for their specific use in exposure assessments. The largest of these recent efforts is the National Human Activity Pattern Survey (NHAPS), a 2-year probability-based telephone survey (n=9386) of exposure-related human activities in the United States (U.S.) sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The primary purpose of NHAPS was to provide comprehensive and current exposure information over broad geographical and temporal scales, particularly for use in probabilistic population exposure models. NHAPS was conducted on a virtually daily basis from late September 1992 through September 1994 by the University of Maryland's Survey Research Center using a computer-assisted telephone interview instrument (CATI) to collect 24-h retrospective diaries and answers to a number of personal and exposure-related questions from each respondent. The resulting diary records contain beginning and ending times for each distinct combination of location and activity occurring on the diary day (i.e., each microenvironment). Between 340 and 1713 respondents of all ages were interviewed in each of the 10 EPA regions across the 48 contiguous states. Interviews were completed in 63% of the households contacted. NHAPS respondents reported spending an average of 87% of their time in enclosed buildings and about 6% of their time in enclosed vehicles. These proportions are fairly constant across the various regions of the U.S. and Canada and for the California population between the late 1980s, when the California Air Resources Board (CARB) sponsored a state-wide activity pattern study, and the mid-1990s, when NHAPS was conducted. However, the number of people exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in California seems to have decreased over the same time period, where exposure is determined by the reported time spent with a smoker. In both California and the entire nation, the most time spent exposed to ETS was reported to take place in residential locations.
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            Home energy efficiency and radon related risk of lung cancer: modelling study

            James Milner, Clive Shrubsole, Payel Das … (2014)
            Objective To investigate the effect of reducing home ventilation as part of household energy efficiency measures on deaths from radon related lung cancer. Design Modelling study. Setting England. Intervention Home energy efficiency interventions, motivated in part by targets for reducing greenhouse gases, which entail reduction in uncontrolled ventilation in keeping with good practice guidance. Main outcome measures Modelled current and future distributions of indoor radon levels for the English housing stock and associated changes in life years due to lung cancer mortality, estimated using life tables. Results Increasing the air tightness of dwellings (without compensatory purpose-provided ventilation) increased mean indoor radon concentrations by an estimated 56.6%, from 21.2 becquerels per cubic metre (Bq/m3) to 33.2 Bq/m3. After the lag in lung cancer onset, this would result in an additional annual burden of 4700 life years lost and (at peak) 278 deaths. The increases in radon levels for the millions of homes that would contribute most of the additional burden are below the threshold at which radon remediation measures are cost effective. Fitting extraction fans and trickle ventilators to restore ventilation will help offset the additional burden but only if the ventilation related energy efficiency gains are lost. Mechanical ventilation systems with heat recovery may lower radon levels and the risk of cancer while maintaining the advantage of energy efficiency for the most airtight dwellings but there is potential for a major adverse impact on health if such systems fail. Conclusion Unless specific remediation is used, reducing the ventilation of dwellings will improve energy efficiency only at the expense of population wide adverse impact on indoor exposure to radon and risk of lung cancer. The implications of this and other consequences of changes to ventilation need to be carefully evaluated to ensure that the desirable health and environmental benefits of home energy efficiency are not compromised by avoidable negative impacts on indoor air quality.
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              CEPHEUS results: measurements and occupants’ satisfaction provide evidence for Passive Houses being an option for sustainable building

              Jürgen Schnieders, Andreas Hermelink (2006)
              Article 0 comments Cited 40 times – based on 0 reviews     Review now
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): Int J Environ Res Public Health
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Int J Environ Res Public Health
                Journal ID (publisher-id): ijerph
                Title: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
                Publisher: MDPI
                ISSN (Print): 1661-7827
                ISSN (Electronic): 1660-4601
                Publication date (Electronic): 10 June 2020
                Publication date (Print): June 2020
                Volume: 17
                Issue: 11
                Electronic Location Identifier: 4149
                Affiliations
                [1 ]School of Natural and Built Environment, Faculty of Built Environment, Creative and Life Sciences, South West College, Enniskillen BT74 4EJ, UK
                [2 ]School of Natural and Build Environment, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Queens University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK; x.meng@ 123456qub.ac.uk
                [3 ]School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, University College Dublin, D04 V1W8 Dublin, Ireland; shane.colclough@ 123456ucd.ie
                Author notes
                [* ]Correspondence: barry.mccarron@ 123456swc.ac.uk ; Tel.: +44-28-6634-2301
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1083-3466
                Article
                Publisher ID: ijerph-17-04149
                DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17114149
                PMC ID: 7312880
                PubMed ID: 32532047
                SO-VID: a88f0e04-3363-4d75-a185-7d5ec725cdbf
                Copyright © © 2020 by the authors.
                License:

                Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

                History
                Date received : 30 April 2020
                Date accepted : 08 June 2020
                Categories
                Subject: Article

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health
                Keywords: indoor radon,certified passive house,mechanical ventilation with heat recovery
                Data availability:
                ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health
                Keywords: indoor radon, certified passive house, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery

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