Abstract
Wood-burning stoves can be legally installed in residential areas in Japan. High time- and spatial-resolved data in real-world living environments is required to quantify the impact of such stoves on air quality in and around residential buildings. In this study, the indoor and outdoor air quality in a residential district in Japan is recorded at a time resolution of 1 minute, using low-cost small environmental sensors. The surveyed house contains a 24-hour ventilation system with an air intake located approximately 10 m away from the chimney of a legally installed wood-burning stove in a neighbouring house. Particulate matter (PM2.5), total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) and CO2 levels were measured and recorded over a period of 65 days. Two types of peaks were observed: broad peaks over a timescale of several days; and a few minutes widths spikes over a timescale of a few minutes. Within the emissions spikes, the highest PM2.5 levels with the time resolution of 1 minute measured indoors and outdoors were 185 g/m3 and 650 g/m3, respectively. Although these values are instantaneous and cannot be directly compared with the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended annual average target of 10 g/m3, they are an order of magnitude higher than this target value. The high time- and spatial-resolutions of testing in this case were able to identify spikes in emissions, which have previously been overlooked in similar studies in Japan.
