Effects Of Outdoor Smoking Areas And Weather Conditions On Indoor Air Quality

At the Research Support Building at Brookhaven National Laboratory building occupants complained of second hand smoke from people smoking outdoors. This building consists of two wings (North and South) joined by an Atrium. Tests were conducted to quantify the in-leakage from outdoor smoking using five gaseous perfluorocarbon tracers (PFTs) released at the two designated and two 'unofficial' outdoor smoking areas, and one in the building. Two test campaigns were conducted (Fall and Winter). The Fall test data supports an increased likelihood of noticing cigarette smoke from the outdoors by the occupants in the North wing as compared to other areas of the building. Concentrations of tracers released outdoors were a few percent of the tracer released indoors. The second campaign in the Winter used Brookhaven Atmospheric Tracer Samplers (BATS) to sample hourly over the PFTs over a 2 day period. During the day, in-leakage was similar to the fall test. However, a temperature inversion occurred during the evening and the winds were calm for a six hour period. During this period three tracers showed a substantial (a factor of 10) increase in concentration as compared to their values in the day when the temperature inversion was not present. The tracer PDCB released from an 'unofficial' smoking area had a peak concentration of 19% when normalized to the tracer released indoors during this period.