Air and Pollutant Transport from Attached Garages to Residential Living Spaces

摘要

NIST is conducting a study on the indoor air quality (IAQ) impacts and engineering solutions related to the transport of pollutants from attached garages to residential living spaces. Natural or equipment-induced pressure differences across air leakage paths in house-garage (HG) interfaces can result in the transport of the contaminants generated in garages into adjacent living spaces. This paper summarizes a literature review on the transport of pollutants from garages to residential living spaces and describes a field study to estimate the range of airtightness of attached garages and of HG interfaces in a sample of U.S. homes. In order to address one gap in understanding these issues, the airtightness of garages and HG interfaces was measured in five residences using fan pressurization. While the small sample of houses limits generalization of the results, a range of house ages, styles, and sizes was included. For all homes tested, the garage was found to be at least twice as leaky as the house, based on air changes per hour at 50 Pa.