Poor indoor air quality is a large problem in Swedish schools, since the health of occupants may be affected. Resources are consumed without identification of utility indicators and there is risk of problems, even after remedial measures have been taken. This can mean both unnecessary suffering for many people and considerable resources being wasted. The building itself is often in focus and other building-related problems may be neglected. The hypothesis of the present work is that other factors than the building itself have decisive influence on indoor air quality. An assessment of these nonbuilding-related reasons for bad indoor air quality has been made in the present study using particle measurements. Results show that it is possible to decrease emissions in indoor air by over 90% through identifying and eliminating activity-related sources of airborne contaminants.
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