Page 61 - Green Builder September-October 2018 Issue

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SMART CITIES

Clearing the air. As health issues become
more prominent, researchers are
considering approaches to improving air
quality for India’s 1.3 billion residents.

CREDIT: JEANETIENNE MINHDUYFLICKR

CREDIT: LA CITTA VITAFLICKR Builder on the work and €ndings of this team. Some team members signi€cant health problems, sending the occupants to their doctors,

are currently back in Dhaka doing air quality testing.
often with no conclusion as to what is the cause of their illnesses.
OTHER FINDINGS ON EARTH AND IN SPACE This can even happen to people living in recently built homes. The
solution is knowledge and properly addressing the problems with
Solar radiation’s e„ect on humans is similar to the Earth’s radiation good design and construction methods and measuring the results.
(in the form of radon). We know to ventilate buildings well in
locations where radon is present, but we hadn’t really correlated it MOISTURE CAN BE A SERIOUS PROBLEM
to solar radiation, nor did I completely understand what radon was A number of years ago, I helped my dear friend Doug Engelbart (his
and how it worked. Moon base, Mars base, space station astronauts, name may be familiar—he invented the computer mouse) through
and even long-range commercial airline crews are or will be exposed his own poor air quality experience. One day he commented on
to high levels of solar radiation. Coordinating research in buildings being dizzy all of the time. I asked if we could go to his house, so I
with the extensive research being done by NASA will accelerate could look around. I found a giant water stain on the ceiling of his
and advance our knowledge for increasing health for humans in dining room from an ongoing roof leak, with signs of black mold
buildings on earth. forming. I recommended getting a quali€ed specialist to carefully
The World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, remove the ceiling material and the mold, and then have the ceiling
recently ranked radon as the second-leading cause of lung cancer repaired. Soon after the completion of the work and with help
globally and will be publishing an update to its work in this area soon. from his physician, Engelbart felt better. Every building and house
has the potential to become a health hazard, even through the
BACK IN THE U.S.A. simplest of issues—like a nail-sized hole in the roof that allows
Every time I travel abroad, I learn something about the U.S. While we water to leak into the building. The presence of mold in a house
were studying slum housing and air quality e„ects on the residents, can increase allergic reactions and in itself can cause many serious
I returned to the U.S. to learn that many areas in the country have illnesses, such as Ménière’s disease.
similar problems—not limited to impoverished areas. Areas with The Hayward Healthy Home program and Hayward SCORE were
million-dollar homes can experience air quality issues that create developed in response to one family’s experience with their home.

www.greenbuildermedia.com September/October 2018 GREEN BUILDER 59

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