Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Indoor Air

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons A/S

Publication Date

12-2012

Volume

22

Issue

6

Disciplines

Public Health

Abstract

In 2005 through 2008 a small rural mountain valley community engaged in a wood stove changeout program to address concerns of poor ambient air quality. During this program we assessed changes to indoor air quality before and after the introduction of a new, lower emission wood stove. We previously reported a greater than 70% reduction in indoor PM2.5 concentrations in homes following the installation of a new EPA-certified stove within the home. We report here on follow-up of the experiences in these and other homes over three winters of sample collection. In 21 homes, we compared pre-changeout PM2.5 concentrations (mean (sd) = 45.0 (33.0) μg/m3) to multiple post-changeout measures of PM2.5 concentrations using a DustTrak. The mean reduction (and 95% confidence interval) from pre-changeout to post-changeout was −18.5 μg/m3 (−31.9, −5.2), adjusting for ambient PM2.5, ambient temperature, and other factors. Findings across homes and across years were highly variable, and a subset of homes did not experience a reduction in PM2.5 following changeout. Reductions were also observed for organic carbon, elemental carbon, and levoglucosan, but increases were observed for dehydroabietic acid and abietic acid. Despite overall improvements in indoor air quality, the varied response across homes may be due to factors other than the introduction of a new wood stove.

Keywords

Intervention, wood smoke, wood stove, biomass, particulate matter, Libby, Montana

DOI

10.1111/j.1600-0668.2012.00789.x

Comments

Published in final edited form as:

Indoor Air. 2012 December; 22(6): 492–500. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0668.2012.00789.x.

Rights

©2012 John Wiley & Sons A/S

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