Do You Have an IAQ Plan for Thanksgiving?
So you've got a bunch of people showing up this week to spend a day or two or three with you. In a perfect world, no one brings any illnesses with them to the party. But what if they do…
filtration
A Burnt Grilled Cheese and the Collapse of Indoor Air Quality
I burned a grilled cheese sandwich recently. I tried to bury the evidence by throwing it in the trash and forgetting about it, but my dear, sweet wife fished it out. "You need to tell the world about this," she…
What Is PM2.5?
You can't see them. You can't smell a lot of them. In fact, they're hard to access with any of your senses. But that doesn't mean your body won't respond to those tiny airborne particles that make up what scientists…
A Vivid Look at the Effects of Air Pollution
This week I saw a photo that will haunt me for the rest of my life. It's one thing to know something. It's another to see it. I've been writing about indoor air quality and the health effects of indoor…
Ionizer Company Sues Indoor Air Quality Expert
Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, indoor air quality has become a subject of great concern. IAQ and infectious disease scientists discovered early on that COVID is airborne. That means removing virus-laden particles from the air or deactivating…
The What, Why, and How of the Corsi-Rosenthal Box
The Westford Symposium on Building Science (known mostly as Building Science Summer Camp) came back to life this year after a two-year pandemic-prompted hiatus. Three of the presentations on the first day focused on health, indoor air quality, and infection…
A Layered Approach to Indoor Air Quality
The past 2.5 years of the COVID pandemic have put a big spotlight on indoor air quality and the spread of infectious disease. I've been writing about various aspects of indoor air quality since I started this blog in 2010,…
The Advantages of Filter Grilles for Your HVAC System
Oh, the controversies of duct design. Standard versus high-efficiency filters. Radial versus trunk and branch. Central versus dedicated return vents. Flex versus sheet metal ducts. But there's another duct debate that centers around the location of the filter. In our…
The Big Picture of Indoor Air Quality – Excerpt
The quote below is a classic from the 1893 book, Ventilation and Heating, by John Shaw Billings. The imagery of wearing someone else's dirty underwear may shock you, but Billings makes a compelling point. We essentially do something worse whenever…
DIY Box Fan Air Cleaner Update
The DIY box fan air cleaner known as the Corsi-Rosenthal Box (or the Comparetto Cube, in a slight variation) has really taken off in the fight against COVID. I wrote about it here in September 2020, with instructions on how…