Natural ventilation strategies to mitigate passive smoking in homes.

This paper investigates possible natural ventilation strategies to reduce exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in dwellings. Particular attention is paid to the migration of tobacco smoke from the living room (usually the smoking room) to the bedrooms which may be occupied by children. This addresses an area of current concern regarding the possible association between passive smoking and adverse health conditions; in particular the link between parental smoking and respiratory illness in children. The study used the multizoned airflow prediction program BREEZE to evaluate the movement of tobacco smoke from the smoking rooms to the bedrooms in typical detached, semi-detached and terraced dwellings for a variety of natural ventilation strategies. Typical smoking patterns were emulated and contaminant movements analysed, taking into account factors such as wind speeds and direction and air temperatures. Some of the results obtained were compared with limited full-scale measurements acquired elsewhere to provide the necessary confidence in the predictions. Controlling pollutant concentration by ventilation can be an energy intensive process, especially during the heating and cooling season. Since almost all dwellings in the U.K. are naturally ventilated, providing optimum ventilation with minimum ventilation heat loss is of concern only during the heating season. Results from the study indicate three possible strategies to mitigate the effect of passive smoking in dwellings; two which could be used during the heating season and one for the remaining times of the year.