Last Friday I got a chance to perform HERS combustion safety
testing in low income housing in the East
Bay in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is affordable multifamily housing
that provides basic living to people of modest means. I tested a sampling of
the large complex. Those eight units were instructive as to what exists, the
problems and potential to make healthier places for modest income people, often
with children, to live in.
HERS testing comes from US federal building science research
and development in our National Laboratories in the decades after the oil
crises of the 1970s. Miniaturization and development of digital test equipment
has allowed HERS raters to bring a powerful array of diagnostic test tools into
the home.
Proper ventilation, moisture and pollutant control are keys
to healthy lungs and there was much room for cost effective improvement here. This
is a public health issue as mold and common interior air pollutants trigger
respiratory ailments, especially asthma with is at epidemic proportions in the
US and common to low income American children.
I was doing combustion safety testing because the units had old,
inexpensive and common gas wall heaters and standard 40 gallon tank gas water
heaters. Most all of the units failed some portion of safety test protocol.
None of them would pass ASHRAE 62.2, the current standard for how much fresh
air airflow a home requires for the respiratory health of the folks living
there.
Findings:
The units leaked a lot of air although there was
no powered ventilation in half of them. I put my manometer on them all. Some of
them showed almost no change at what the Building Performance Institute calls “worst
case depressurization” where we turn on all the fans and see how much of a
partial vacuum we can measure with precision test equipment. This test is
crucial because some homes have so much suction from kitchen fans that they can
pull combustion gas (carbon monoxide and other pollutants) from the open-combustion
gas appliances.
The units had range hood fans over electric stoves and none
had bathroom fans. Almost half of the range hoods I tested were improperly
connected to the wall exhaust flue pipe. The maintenance man who showed me
around told me that these were “recirculating” fans. The units all had an elegantly
simple vent out through the wall of only 4 ¾” which offers little restriction to
moving contaminated cooking air outside. The problem was, they weren’t working
as designed, they were blocked. The simple fix was to cut out a square of steel
in the back of the modest yet functional existing range hood fans so that they
could work as intended to get contaminated air outside.
The units had standard 40 gallon tank natural gas water
heaters in the small garage. Nearly half of the garages were used as laundry
and living areas. The space is just too valuable to put a car inside. The garages
became changing rooms, laundry drying racks, offices and storage space. The first
four units I tested had natural gas leaks at the water heater. Though fortunately
small leaks, gas is unacceptable in people’s living and breathing spaces.
Two of the eight water heater exhaust flues were not moving
exhaust outside like they were supposed to. I could not tell if a bird was
nesting in the flue or if it had ever worked properly. What I did see was
combustion gases escaping into area where people breathe.
My common thought about these homes was that they had poor
or no ventilation. I could measure CO and natural gas leaking into the structures.
What I could not quantify was the amount of laundry detergents/softeners,
cleaning products, stale grease, off-gassing carpets & electronics, cat
boxes and waste dust from skin mites. I saw no HEPA vacuum cleaners in any of
the test units.
Each unit had an old Williams gas wall heater. In my time as a HERS rater I
have come to know these units as nearly ubiquitous in low income housing.
Previous tests of these heaters showed common and serious test failures. I have
found some of these units to spike to over 400 parts per million CO. I’ve had
my CO tester spike off the chart, leaving it damaged and needing factory repair.
What we found was that in units with carpet the dust and fibers from the carpet
get inside the heaters and then burns during start up. What about a child
living here when the wall furnace clicks on? If not retrofitting the furnaces
with heat pumps, make sure they are vacuumed and cleaned a few times a year.
The smoke detectors should also be tested semi-annually.
This housing complex was built in 1966 at a time when lead
paint and asbestos were standard construction materials. Energy was not an
issue. Bathroom fans were not mandatory. Wall to wall carpet was a luxury
becoming affordable.
Hopeful Signs.
One positive thing about the tests is that every one of
these two story units had a smoke and carbon monoxide detector at the top and
bottom of the stairs. If there had been enough CO leaked, the units would
eventually go off and warn the residents.
However while there were CO and smoke detectors, there was nothing to
signal the family there that micro-particles from cooking, the mites living in
the carpet, the leaking gas and mold that were there and getting into children’s
lungs.
A few of the units had tile throughout rather than
carpet which harbors dust and pollutants.
The maintenance technician cared about the folks
who lived there and was working with the management to update the units to a
safe and healthier state.
Comments
from the Maintenance Man
The folks in these units often fry their food.
They often won’t report a water leak until the water has penetrated wood,
forcing costly repairs with limited maintenance funds. This wet wood is a major
cause of mold and the lung ailments that it triggers.
HERS testing is primarily about energy efficiency but immediately
runs square into human respiratory health in the home. The home energy/health
connection is important to value. Both health and energy have known and rising costs.
Seeing energy and health together, as a synergistic system, yields public
health savings. Using energy more
intelligently with well-thought-out building retrofits gets you to a place
where people have a home environment that is more conductive to health.
George Matthews
Building Energy Compliance Testing
www.bect.us
