REAL TIME MONITORING OF AIR BORNE PARTICULATES.

Mary J. Rozenberg, Burning Issues, Los Altos, CA 94022

From Thanksgiving 1992, through January 1993, air borne particulates smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter were measured at a fixed site in a residential neighborhood of the San Francisco Bay Area. The recording interval was 15 minutes using a Nephelometer manufactured by Radiance Research of Seattle, Washington. The data clearly shows that particulate concentrations increase most rapidly in the early evening and that the highest concentrations occur in the late evening, after 11 PM. This clearly suggests that the particulates are generated by non industrial and non automotive sources. The data when processed to generate average weekdays and average weekend days, show curves that are surprising similar. Again, this suggests that the particulates result from domestic processes, the most likely of which is Residential Wood Burning. This is consistent with the results other studies performed in the San Francisco Bay Area. This session will present the collected data.

Since indoor particulates levels approach 80 % of the outdoor levels, it is clear that Residential Wood Burning causes dangerous levels of indoor air pollution in residential neighborhoods at times when people are in their homes subject to the health effects of particulate pollution.

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Fairley, D., De Mandel, R., Rothenberg, M., and Perardi, T. (1992), Results From the 1991-92 Pilot Study of Wintertime PM10 in the San Francisco Bay Area BAAQMD TM 92002

Anuszewski, J., Larson, T. V., and Koenig, J. O. (1992) Simultaneous Indoor and Outdoor Particle Light Scattering Measurements at Nine Homes Using a Portable Nephelometer. University of Washington, Department of Civil Engineering and Department of Environmental Health

 


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