Make air quality testing ACCESSIBLE

Here is a thread of conversation with a builder.


> Just curious - can it detect if a boiler is exhausting thru a chimney
> completely? It senses carbon monoxide I assume

That is a testing of chemical or monoxide testing. There are equipments for that. I can look it up.

There are these cheap sensors that connects to home grid which you can integrate. It may take some time but I will come up with an answer. I think you are interested in collecting data on; leaks, humidity, chemical (CO) sensor?

For now, what I can do is Air-o-cell testing;

"The Air-O-CellTM Air Sampling cassette is a sampling device designed for the rapid collection and analysis of a wide range of airborne aerosols. These include fungal spores, pollen, insect parts, skin cell fragments, fibers, and inorganic particulates. Air enters the cassette, the particles become impacted on the sampling substrate, and the air leaves through the exit orifice. The airflow and patented cassette housing is designed in such a way that the particles are distributed and deposited equally on a special glass slide contained in the cassette housing called the ``trace."

There are more problems now than before as people make their homes more closed up. It can keep dust (aka particulates) in the system and especially in their central air / duct system.

As they make things more efficient and green, they are having issues because fresh air can't come into the house. Closed systems often are subject to high humidity and mold problems.

In addition, technology is pushing products using nano technology and particulates are getting smaller. Smaller than asbestos.. Asbestos is bad because of its hollow structure.

In many cases, people are gutting and rebuilding with new stuff (aka clean stuff). But with simple and small leaks, you can have dust (pollen/mold/?) in the system for long time.

For this reason, earlier energy efficient homes failed because air became toxic. Newer energy efficient homes can have "heat exchanger/filter" which allows heat loss and bring good air. I am sure central air system (HVAC) does that. But these systems filter outside air but if you have dust in the ducts, what do you do?

I think one needs to test them. I think air testing should be more accessible.