TY  - GEN
PB  - NCEUB
TI  - Indoor Mould Testing of a Historic University Building: UCL Chadwick Building
CY  - London, UK
N1  - This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher?s terms and conditions.
UR  - http://nceub.org.uk/ocs/index.php/MC2017/MC2017/paper/view/266
Y1  - 2017/09/22/
A1  - Chen, Y
A1  - Aktas, YD
AV  - public
KW  - Mould testing
KW  -  school
KW  -  office
KW  -  historical building
ID  - discovery10023377
N2  - Indoor mould is one of the most important determinants of indoor air quality, with serious implications
not only on human health, but also on the building envelope itself. This study is based on the Chadwick building,
which is a late 19th century building, currently under the ownership of UCL as a workplace and school. Therefore
it brings together different functions which are conventionally discussed separately in the relevant literature.
This study aims to measure airborne and surface mould concentrations within the Chadwick Building, and to
find out the correlations between these and the physical characteristics of the tested spaces. To this end, 3
classrooms, 3 offices, 3 laboratories, and 1 activity room were sampled to examine the airborne (active or
aggressive) and surface mould concentrations. Samples were analysed for the ?-N-acetylhexosaminidase (NAHA)
activity to determine the fungal cell biomass at the laboratories of Mycometer in Denmark. The testing protocol
also involved active particle counting, and temperature and relative humidity measurements. Offices were found
to be the least mould intensive spaces, while laboratories were found to have the highest level of mould and
particle intensity among all tested spaces. Based on the benchmarks previously established for residential indoor
environments (currently in use by the Danish Building Institute), the results showed that most of the tested
spaces did not have no mould and with a good/normal cleaning standard. Only one space and a few surfaces
indicated either a minor (most likely non-building-related) mould, or a poor cleaning standard. The validity of
these categories for a workplace/school should be further investigated by future research.
ER  -