Air Quality Matters

This week, we dive into a fascinating paper from the Journal of Sustainable Futures titled Co-creating Sustainable Innovations in Irish Social Housing Through Participatory Research, to explore a question that fundamentally challenges how we think about indoor air quality intervention: What if the single biggest barrier to deploying environmental sensors in homes isn't the technology—but the complete absence of trust, agency, and meaningful participation from the people whose living rooms we're trying to monitor?

In Ireland, social housing providers act as landlords responsible for repair, maintenance, and dealing with problems like dampness and mould. But their strategy is almost entirely reactive—waiting for residents to call and report a problem. By the time that call is made, the resident has likely already been exposed to harmful levels of damp and mould for a prolonged period, and the building's infrastructure may already be compromised. The SHINE project (Sustainable Homes Integrating Non-Intrusive Environmental Sensors) aimed to transition from reactive maintenance to proactive monitoring using low cost environmental sensors. But the researchers knew they couldn't just drop technology into people's living rooms without asking them first.

Key Topics Discussed:

The Historical Baggage Problem: Top down regeneration and sustainability projects in Ireland have a shaky track record. Dolphin House residents spent over a decade fighting for regeneration due to horrific living conditions and severe mould. Despite 25 million allocated in 2016, years later only a fraction has been retrofitted. When you have that kind of historical baggage, trust is understandably low.

The Fear of Surveillance and Data Exploitation: When you tell someone you're putting a sensor in their home, their mind immediately jumps to surveillance. Residents worried landlords were spying on them, recording audio and video, that data would be weaponised to evict them. What if environmental data showing a resident lived in a damp, mouldy home found its way to a health insurance provider? It could literally affect their ability to get coverage for lung conditions.

The Challenge of Meaningful Participation: Consultations can easily turn into forums for venting. Stakeholders advised that the project had to clearly answer the resident's fundamental question: what's in it for us? If sensors are just seen as a tool for the landlord to save money on maintenance, residents will push back. The narrative has to focus on how sensors save the resident's time, reduce their bills, and protect their health.

The Blame Narrative Problem: For years, the narrative around mould has been to blame the resident—telling them they just aren't opening their windows enough or they're drying too many clothes indoors. Approaching residents with a patronising or blaming tone will cause them to instantly refuse participation.

Co-creating sustainable innovations in Irish social housing through participatory research https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sftr.2026.101740

The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with

Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/

Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Lindab (https://www.lindab.ie/)

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) - Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/)

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction: The One Take Format and the Participatory Research Paper
00:01:11 The Reactive Maintenance Problem: When Waiting Means Harm
00:01:54 The SHINE Project: Shifting from Reactive to Proactive Monitoring
00:02:35 The Historical Baggage: Why Top-Down Projects Fail in Ireland
00:03:49 The Participatory Research Approach: 28 Stakeholder Voices
00:04:27 Barrier One: The Fear of Surveillance and Data Exploitation
00:05:40 Barrier Two: The Challenge of Meaningful Participation
00:06:32 Barrier Three: Specific Needs of Vulnerable Populations
00:07:25 The Engineering Response: Data Minimization and Edge Computing
00:08:10 Flipping the Power Dynamic: User Control and Inert Design
00:09:16 The Real Barrier: Participation by Design, Not Technology
00:10:09 Closing Thoughts: Listening First, Building Better

This week, we sit down with Kwok Wai THam, President of Indoor Air 2026 with Vice Presidents, Yvonne Soh, and Chandra Sekhar, to explore a question that fundamentally challenges how we think about the evolution of indoor air quality: What if the single most important shift in the last two decades isn't just our deeper understanding of the science—but our recognition that clean indoor air is now a fundamental human right, requiring resilience, technology, and human centric design to deliver?

Key Topics Discussed:

From Reactive to Proactive: In 2003, the focus was on sick building syndrome and reactive maintenance. In 2026, the conversation has shifted to proactive biosurveillance, real-time sensor networks, and predictive analytics powered by artificial intelligence. Buildings are no longer passive containers. They are intelligent systems capable of detecting, responding to, and mitigating indoor air quality problems before occupants even notice.

The Complexity Problem: Indoor environments are more complex than ever. New synthetic materials off-gas volatile organic compounds. Occupancy densities have increased. External pollution from wildfires, traffic, and industrial sources infiltrates buildings faster than ventilation systems can respond. And climate change is compounding thermal discomfort, humidity challenges, and energy demands. Science has advanced, but so have the problems.

Human Centric Design and Adaptive Comfort: Singapore has pioneered mixed-mode ventilation strategies that work with the weather rather than against it. When outdoor conditions are acceptable, buildings switch to natural ventilation. When temperatures rise, air conditioning activates. This approach reduces energy consumption while maintaining thermal comfort. But it requires rethinking occupant expectations, building controls, and system resilience during transient conditions.

Fifteen Sub Themes and a Global Conversation: Indoor Air 2026 features fifteen technical sub themes covering everything from source control and materials selection to airborne infectious disease, smart building technology, and policy development. The conference deliberately avoids regional segmentation. Every theme is global. Every challenge is universal. The goal is cross learning—taking lessons from Latin America, Europe, Asia, and North America and applying them everywhere.

GUESTS:

Prof. Tham Kwok Wai

President, Indoor Air 2026 | National University of Singapore

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tham-kwok-wai-0623aa44/

Engr. Yvonne Soh

Vice President, Indoor Air 2026 | CEO, Singapore Green Building Council

https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvonne-soh-0a78934/

Prof. Chandra Sekhar

Vice President, Indoor Air 2026 | National University of Singapore

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chandra-sekhar/

Indoor Air 2026 https://www.indoorair2026.org/

The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with

Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/

Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Lindab (https://www.lindab.ie/)

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) - Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/)

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction: Welcome to Indoor Air 2026 Preview
00:02:46 Twenty Years of Progress: Reflecting on Indoor Air Since 2003
00:06:48 The Pandemic Parallel: SARS-CoV-1 Then, COVID-19 Now
00:10:22 From Sick Buildings to Human-Centered Design: The Green Building Evolution
00:13:17 The Conference Theme: Enhancing Well-Being Through Resilience and Understanding
00:15:38 Fifteen Sub-Themes: From Source Control to Clean Air Equivalence
00:19:12 The Complexity Challenge: More Knowledge, More Problems
00:22:01 Technology as Enabler: Sensors, Data, and Artificial Intelligence
00:27:10 Singapore as Living Laboratory: Climate, Walkability, and Mixed-Mode Design
00:35:26 The Conference Experience: Venue, Schedule, and Parallel Sessions
00:49:50 Keynote Speakers: From Science to Policy and Translational Impact
00:49:17 Special Events: Global Clean Air Pledge and Medical-Engineering Collaboration
01:00:25 Beyond the Conference Rooms: Technical Tours and Indoors Go Out
01:03:26 Investing in the Future: Summer School and Career Pathways
01:04:39 The Next Generation: Young Professionals and Sustainability Impact
01:09:33 Global Gathering: 900 Delegates from Every Continent

This week, we dive into a fascinating full scale experimental study published in the Journal of Indoor Environments titled Indoor Laundry Drying: Full Scale Determination of Water Emissions Rates and Impact on Thermal Comfort, to explore a question that fundamentally challenges how we think about energy efficiency advice: What if the single most common energy saving recommendation—drying clothes indoors instead of using a tumble dryer—is actually forcing us to turn up the heating and creating serious indoor air quality problems we've never properly quantified?

Across Europe, particularly during winter months, over 60% of laundries are dried indoors in countries like Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Finland. In France alone, tumble dryers account for 20% of average annual household electricity consumption. The advice is clear: save energy, ditch the dryer, hang your clothes on a rack. But while we know this practice coincides with dust mite growth and high concentrations of airborne mould spores due to rising moisture, the actual kinetics—how much water is emitted, exactly when, and how it physically changes the room's environment—has never been properly quantified in a controlled, full scale way. Until now.

Key Topics Discussed:

The Cotton Culprit: A typical four kilogram load of dry cotton towels will hold about two litres of water after a standard 40 degree wash. Spinning faster than 1,000 RPM doesn't extract much more water. Cotton is the real moisture problem when it comes to indoor drying.

Three Phases of Drying: By constantly weighing the drying rack and monitoring room humidity in a controlled 40 cubic metre experimental chamber, researchers discovered water emission isn't a slow, steady trickle. It happens in three distinct phases: the initial burst (first two hours, exceeding 100 grams per hour, peaking at 360 grams per hour), the steady state (10 to 25 hours, stabilizing around 50 grams per hour as the room becomes humid), and the exhaustion phase (beyond 30 hours, gradually tailing off).

The Temperature Drop Problem: Evaporating water is endothermic—it literally sucks heat out of surrounding air. As laundry dried, room temperature dropped significantly, recording drops between half a degree and 3.8 degrees Celsius. If your room starts off quite dry, the initial humidity gradient is higher, water evaporates faster, and the temperature drop is even sharper.

The Thermal Comfort Failure: When researchers mapped these temperature and humidity changes onto standard thermal comfort charts like ASHRAE 55, the results were clear: passive indoor laundry drying actively drags room conditions right out of acceptable comfort zones. Even wearing thicker winter clothes only partially mitigates the discomfort.

The Heating Paradox: If we're told to avoid tumble dryers to save energy, but doing so drops the temperature of our living spaces by almost four degrees, what do we inevitably do? We turn up the central heating. The energy saving advice creates a new energy consumption problem.

Mitigation Strategies: We need to be strategic about where we dry clothes. Positioning drying racks in bathrooms close to air extraction points can avoid spreading moisture and physically cooling down living and sleeping spaces. The first hour or two of clothes drying is particularly critical for moisture emission.

Indoor laundry drying: Full-scale determination of water emission rate and impact on thermal comfort https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100089

The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with

Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/

Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Lindab (https://www.lindab.ie/)

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) - Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/)

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction: The One Take Format and the Mundane Routine of Laundry
00:00:58 The Energy Paradox: Why We're Told to Ditch the Tumble Dryer
00:02:21 The Cotton Culprit: How Much Water Are We Really Releasing?
00:03:03 The Three Phases of Drying: From Burst to Exhaustion
00:04:04 The Endothermic Effect: Why Drying Clothes Literally Cools Your Room
00:04:40 The Thermal Comfort Crisis: When Laundry Drags You Out of the Comfort Zone
00:05:04 The Heating Trap: Trading Tumble Dryer Energy for Central Heating
00:05:26 The Strategic Solution: Building Physics Meets Laundry Day
00:06:01 Closing Thoughts: Treating Mundane Tasks with Building Physics Respect

This week, we sit down with Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO of the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), to explore a question that fundamentally challenges how we think about healthy buildings: What if the single biggest barrier to transforming the built environment isn't our lack of knowledge about indoor environmental quality—but our inability to communicate complexity in ways that inspire action rather than paralysis?

Key Topics Discussed:

- Meeting People Where They Are: How do you communicate the holistic vision of indoor environmental quality without overwhelming stakeholders? Rachel explains why IWBI always starts with what matters most to the person across the table. If you're talking to a CEO, lead with recruitment, retention, and productivity. If you're talking to a facilities manager, talk about deferred maintenance and occupant satisfaction.
- Incremental Progress Over Perfection: Unlike many certifications that reward only finished projects, WELL is designed to celebrate incremental progress. WELL at Scale has proven that clients don't move in straight lines. They might start with one landmark building, then progress toward equity ratings across portfolios, or spend a year focusing on just a few features. One point earned toward any designation now counts toward full certification.
- Performance Testing Reveals the Invisible: WELL is proudly performance based. After a project is complete and occupied, third party testers measure air quality, water quality, thermal comfort, lighting, and sound. Buildings that fail must retest. Rachel shares stories of projects that discovered elevator shafts pumping unfiltered air into lobbies, printers off gassing VOCs, and contaminated soil beneath indoor plants. Without performance testing, these issues would never have been found.
- Residential and Affordable Housing: WELL for Residential launched as a pilot expecting 3,000 enrollments. It received 30,000 straight out of the gate, including 22,000 military homes. Rachel highlights a groundbreaking partnership with Enterprise Community Partners, embedding WELL into the Enterprise Green Communities standard for affordable housing. This means WELL is now legislated in over 50 percent of US states for affordable housing, ensuring the people most in need benefit first, not last.

GUEST:

Rachel Hodgdon

President and CEO, International WELL Building Institute

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelhodgdon/

IWBI https://www.wellcertified.com/

The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with

Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/

Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Lindab (https://www.lindab.ie/)

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) - Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/)

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction: Meeting Rachel Hodgdon and the IWBI Mission
00:02:50 The Complexity Challenge: Communicating Holistic Indoor Environmental Quality
00:03:53 One WELL: Simplifying Entry Points and Rewarding Incremental Progress
00:07:59 The Apple Approach: Building a Unified Ecosystem for Healthy Buildings
00:09:40 Evolution from Green Buildings: The Second Wave of Sustainability
00:12:29 Authority and Accessibility: Balancing Technical Rigor with Broad Appeal
00:21:37 Meeting People Where They Are: The Art of Advocacy and Communication
00:31:47 The Power of Experience: Case Studies and Exemplar Spaces
00:36:05 Beyond Headquarters: Reaching the Long Tail of the Built Environment
00:39:27 WELL at Scale and Existing Buildings: Flexibility for Portfolios
00:40:58 Military Housing and Affordable Housing: 30,000 Homes and Counting
00:55:56 The Australian Success Story: What's Happening Down Under
00:58:54 Navigating Headwinds: DEI, Sustainability, and the Great Rebrand
01:05:05 Performance Testing and Accountability: Making the Invisible Visible
01:23:23 The ROI of Healthy Buildings: Retention, Recruitment, and Productivity
01:20:48 Neurodiversity and Universal Design: Designing for the Extremes Benefits Everyone
01:42:45 The Medical Gap: Why Doctors Don't Ask About Your Home
01:47:15 The Future: Continuous Monitoring and the Next Ten Years
01:50:33 Closing Thoughts: Data is Knowledge, Knowledge is Power

This week, we dive into a fascinating paper from Douglas Booker published in the journal Athermira titled Unstable Air: How COVID-19 Remade Knowing Air Quality in School Classrooms, to explore a question that fundamentally challenges how we think about indoor air quality intervention: What if the single most important lesson from the pandemic isn't that we need to measure air quality—but that we need to fundamentally rethink who is responsible for fixing it, and whether our solutions are creating entirely new problems?

This paper offers a rare behind the scenes look at an applied indoor air quality research project that got completely hijacked and subsequently reshaped by the global pandemic. It examines how our understanding of what makes air good or bad is not just a scientific fact but something that shifts based on society, politics, and in this case, a novel virus.

Key Topics Discussed:

The Original Mission: Before COVID, researchers deployed sophisticated air quality monitors into 20 school classrooms across England and Wales to measure traditional pollutants—ultrafine particles, nitrogen dioxide, VOCs—things infiltrating from outside or off-gassing from furniture. The goal was straightforward: measure the bad stuff and see how effectively air cleaners could scrub it away.

The Pandemic Pivot: When COVID hit, the entire narrative flipped. Suddenly the greatest source of indoor air pollution wasn't traffic or cleaning products—it was human breathing. We became the source of contamination. The project had to adapt, but hit a microscopic hurdle: how do you actually measure a virus in the air when your monitors just count particles without telling you what they are?

The Carbon Dioxide Proxy: Unable to isolate viral particles, researchers pivoted to a reliable proxy: carbon dioxide. By watching CO2 levels rise and fall, they could measure how much air in the room had already been in someone else's lungs and calculate ventilation rates. Pre-COVID data showed classrooms regularly exceeded recommended limits. But graphs alone don't change behaviour.

The Wells Riley Translation: To translate numbers into risk, researchers used the Wells Riley equation to calculate airborne infection probability. The results were powerful: in one scenario, low ventilation created an 80% probability of infection. Simply increasing airflow to 100 cubic metres per hour dropped that to 40%. Small ventilation improvements created massive risk reductions.

The Milk Out of Your Tea Problem: In the rush to dilute the virus by opening windows, we might be trading one severe health risk for another. If your school sits on a busy urban road, opening windows drops CO2 and virus risk but floods classrooms with toxic traffic fumes. Running a portable air cleaner with windows wide open to a polluted street is like trying to take milk out of your tea.

The Inequality of Personal Responsibility: By handing out CO2 monitors and telling teachers to manage windows, the government effectively individualised air quality. The message: here's a blinking light, fixing it is your responsibility.

Unstable air: How COVID-19 remade knowing air quality in school classrooms https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378714580_Unstable_air_How_COVID-19_remade_knowing_air_quality_in_school_classrooms

The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with

Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/

Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Lindab (https://www.lindab.ie/)

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) - Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/)

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction: The One Take Format and Unstable Air
00:01:27 The Outdoor Air Quality Paradox: Why We Ignored Indoor Spaces
00:02:30 The Original Mission: Measuring Classroom Pollutants in 2020
00:03:18 The Pandemic Pivot: When Humans Became the Pollution Source
00:03:58 The Measurement Problem: You Can't See a Virus in Particle Counts
00:04:33 The CO2 Proxy Solution: 150 Years of Measuring Bad Air
00:05:57 The Wells-Riley Equation: Translating Numbers Into Infection Risk
00:07:18 From Concern to Care: The Ethical Intervention That Worked
00:08:25 The Window Paradox: Trading Viral Risk for Toxic Fumes
00:09:35 The Inequality Problem: When Air Quality Becomes Personal Responsibility
00:10:23 The Critical Future: Building Better Pandemic Infrastructure