Indoor air quality and passive solar buildings.

Passive solar buildings are expected to provide their intended functions, safely and without adverse health effects, and at substantial energy savings compared to conventional buildings. Moreover, passive solar buildings are frequently considered as appropriate technology in parts of the world where the incidence rates of diseases associated with indoor exposures may be the highest. It is therefore critically important to understand both the health and economic consequences of applying "appropriate" passive solar technologies available today to residential, educational, health care, and commercial facilities. In this paper, environmental characteristics of buildings are reviewed; the two basic strategies of source and exposure control are examined; and a method of assuring the "health" of passive and low energy buildings is described. It is concluded in this paper that all buildings contain both active and passive systems; that acceptable indoor air quality can be achieved and maintained in passive and low energy buildings through the process of continuous accountability; and that building diagnostics procedures can be used to assure the performance of "healthy" passive and low energy buildings during their design, construction and operations phases.