A low-cost user-friendly Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) calculator for monitoring poor living environment

Abstract

In recent year, many very small living units with poor living environment have emerged due to housing scarcity in Hong Kong. Because of the high occupancy density, some IEQ problems have been found and therefore IEQ monitoring at home is necessary. However, high instrumentation cost of IEQ monitoring hinder general public to exert IEQ control at home. In view of this, a low-cost user-friendly IEQ calculator is developed in this study using IEQ parameter sensors. It is found that the performance of IEQ calculator is comparable to laboratory grade IEQ instrument with a much cheaper total cost. The calculator can be a handy tool for general people to monitor and diagnose IEQ problems at home to adopt mitigation strategies without investing large amount of money.