English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT
Add to Basket
  Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released
Journal Article

The short-term effect of residential home energy retrofits on indoor air quality and microbial exposure: A case-control study

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons271750

Angenent,  LT
Research Group Environmental Biotechnology, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Max Planck Society;

External Resource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)
There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Nguyen, M., Holmes, E., & Angenent, L. (2021). The short-term effect of residential home energy retrofits on indoor air quality and microbial exposure: A case-control study. PLoS One, 16(9): e0230700. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0230700.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000A-3ADF-B
Abstract
Weatherization of residential homes is a widespread procedure to retrofit older homes to improve the energy efficiency by reducing building leakage. Several studies have evaluated the effect of weatherization on indoor pollutants, such as formaldehyde, radon, and indoor particulates, but few studies have evaluated the effect of weatherization on indoor microbial exposure. Here, we monitored indoor pollutants and bacterial communities during reductions in building leakage for weatherized single-family residential homes in New York State and compared the data to non-weatherized homes. Nine weatherized and eleven non-weatherized single-family homes in Tompkins County, New York were sampled twice: before and after the weatherization procedures for case homes, and at least 3 months apart for control homes that were not weatherized. We found that weatherization efforts led to a significant increase in radon levels, a shift in indoor microbial community, and a warmer and less humid indoor environment. In addition, we found that changes in indoor airborne bacterial load after weatherization were more sensitive to shifts in season, whereas indoor radon levels were more sensitive to ventilation rates.