VOC Emissions after Building Renovations: Traditional and Less Common Indoor Air Contaminants, Potential Sources, and Reported Health Complaints.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air of 51 renovated rooms in Schleswig-Holstein were measured. The examined buildings were of different kinds - private flats, schools, kindergarten, office buildings - showing a recent renovation within the last two years to be the only common characteristic. Among the dominating substances in the 46/51 complaint cases there were to be found well known substances as alkylbenzenes or monoterpenes at high concentrations but also less common substances, i.e. substances which have only recently been reported as indoor air contaminants, e.g. phenoxyethanol, 2-(2-butoxyethoxy)-ethylacetate (butyldiglycolacetate) or longifolene (Mohr, 1994) at remarkable concentrations. A tentative to illustrate the simultaneous occurrences of the different substances, especially the uncommon ones with their potential sources and the observed health impairments was made. Finally, VOC emissions from two carpet glues, suspected during the investigations to play a role as a potential source of the less common substances, were exemplarily measured under test chamber conditions. This additional laboratory experiment was made to verify the tendency shown in the field study that modern ecological building materials contain less volatile and less common substances with increased indoor persistance that could partially account for slowly rising complaints in the sense of the SBS phenomenon.

REITIZ Marcus;  MOHR Siegfried;  HEINZOW Birger;  KNOEPPEL Helmut; 

1998-06-05

JRC16296

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC16296,