Indoor air and water damaged homes

Fungi are found throughout the environment, including the air. Outdoors, there is about one fungal spore per liter and we breathe ca. 11,000 liters of air each day. Outdoors, therefore, you breathe in ca. 11,000 spores each day. Buildings reduce the amount of fungi and, in a well-constructed and maintained building, you would breathe in only ca. 1,100 spores/day. In a water damaged building, where fungi grow on wall board, paper, paint, glue, caulk and wood, the concentration of spores can rise by 10- to 100-fold or more. In these buildings, you could breathe in 110,000 or more spores/day. Our research on the assemblages of fungi indoors and outdoors began with well-maintained homes where we found that the fungi in indoor air are one-tenth as numerous, but the same species, as those outside (Adams, et al. 2013). Subsequent studies using experimental chambers showed how fungi enter buildings through ventilation and how we bring fungi indoors on our shoes and clothing (Adams, et al. 2015). We have begun to study homes where maintenance has been neglected. Here, where water damage has occurred, assemblages of fungi are distinct from those in undamaged units (Sylvain, et al. 2019). We think that our approach can be used to identify homes suffering from water damage by simply testing indoor air.

 


Publications on indoor air