{"id":1206,"date":"2021-06-16T14:21:32","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T14:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caburnsolutions.com\/?p=1206"},"modified":"2021-06-16T14:21:32","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T14:21:32","slug":"relative-humidity-light-temperature-and-the-implications-for-building-monitoring-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caburnsolutions.com\/blog\/relative-humidity-light-temperature-and-the-implications-for-building-monitoring-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Relative Humidity, Light & Temperature, and the Implications for Building Monitoring"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Relative Humidity, Light & Temperature, and the Implications for Building Monitoring\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Caburn Solutions are an innovative, and specialised Internet-of-Things (IoT) company with a background in health and environmental monitoring. Our focus being the development of ground-breaking managed home gateways and sensors which place occupant privacy, wellbeing, and security to the fore. Our innovative approach to home monitoring removes barriers between smart-home technologies, telehealth and indoor environmental-monitoring. Where a range of different commercially available and highly specialised sensors are connected to a single gateway. Our secure cloud-based systems ingest data for visual presentation and analysis, while notifying stakeholders to act via simple messaging or instructions.<\/span><\/p>

We apply these technologies to advancing the understanding of building environments, their preservation and maintenance, together with the associated material, physical and health benefits that can be contributed via their careful management.<\/span><\/p>

Relative Humidity, Temperature & Light<\/b><\/p>

Relative Humidity (RH) is a significant factor in preserving important materials and artefacts in public, private and commercial buildings. Building preservation organisations, museums and art galleries have long understood optimum ranges exist for conserving sensitive, organic, or oxidising materials<\/span>. Construction masonry, metals, wood, leather, documents, and paper are all at risk (Brown & Rose, 1996; Watkinson, et al., 2019). Combinations of temperatures (high or low), light and humidity also risk internal damp, which endangers building integrity. High humidity with a variety of temperature conditions creates condensation or dew, and thus mould growth (Wolkoff, 2018). Conditions detrimental to building status and resulting in further emissions via damp, condensation, rot, and mould growth (ibid).<\/span><\/p>

Optimum RH for buildings, however, varies upon the region, time of day\/night, occupancy and building context. Some materials and organics benefit from certain types of conditions, while others suffer damage or are spoiled (Erhardt & Mecklenburg, 1994). For instance, certain plants grown indoors or in greenhouses require particular temperatures, light and RH to grow most productively, whilst others are spoiled or risk microbiological contamination (Santosh, et al., 2017). For important artworks, crafts, manufactured or cultural objects, and the most sensitive hygroscopic cases, the environment is strictly recommended to be controlled between \u201c50 \u00b1 5% RH and 20 or 21 \u00b1 2\u00b0C\u201d (Atkinson, 2014, p. 205). Commercial or personal artefacts, possessions, and collections, decorations and furnishings are carefully designed and represent significant time, effort, and expense for individuals and organisations. Building must also therefore serve to store and protect valued personal, business, trade, or retail goods.<\/span><\/p>

Seasonal effects and latitude are important factors when considering RH (Brown & Rose, 1996). For example, in Northerly climates, a RH of less than 40% can damage buildings (ibid). Indoor heating to 18 degrees typically reduces the RH to less than 20% (ibid). Raising RH, however, can raise the dew point of internal air above the external air temperature. Forming condensation on those elements cooled by contact with the external environment (ibid). In these sorts of regional contexts, it is therefore recommended in unoccupied properties, that temperatures should be maintained at a lower level, while RH should be maintained at the middle range to prevent condensation (ibid). Additionally, for those properties left unoccupied in winter, temperatures should as a minimum be kept above 5\u00b0 Celsius to avoid frost damage to walls or frozen water-pipes (ibid). This similarly applies to produce that needs to remain unspoiled and kept within certain optimal ranges. Excessive exposure to natural and artificial sources of light and Ultraviolet (UV) radiation, also diminishes many biological and manufactured materials; \u2018bleaching\u2019 colourants, furnishings, clothing, treasured artefacts and even plastics. Lux is the ubiquitous method of measuring light in most building or conservation environments, but spectral charactaristics tend not to be considered (Garside, et al., 2017). Rather, decisions are usually based upon human selections which seek to limit exposure [i.e. UV] (ibid).<\/span><\/p>

Humidity, temperature, and light are therefore not only important factors for building\u2019s maintenance and preservation, but also for the produce, objects, and artefacts they permanently or temporarily house. A key concern for public and private building administrators, landlords, retailers, tenants, and (absent) homeowners. This, however, is not only a complicated area for the circumstantial management of assets. There are often conflicting needs between optimum heating and lighting conditions for buildings and those needed for human comfort (Neuhaus & Schellen, 2006). Humidity, temperature, and light are the source of environmental interactions with individuals, impacting upon their comfort, mood, health, and well-being. For example, low humidity is associated with discomfort for individuals (Wolkoff, 2018). Winter influenza transmissions are also significantly linked to low temperatures or dry conditions caused by indoor heating (Lowen, et al., 2007). Low temperatures appear to increase transmission as does a RH below 20%, whereas a RH of over 80% means transmission can be potentially nullified (ibid). High humidity, however, can also increase the survival and transmission of certain types of other viruses (Wolkoff, 2018).<\/span><\/p>

Monitoring systems of buildings and structures are conventionally absent, or at best snapshot interventions via manual, on-site sample collection. Given the likely implications on buildings, health, and comfort, new studies employing in-depth real-time monitoring and measurement via remote live sensors are needed. Caburn Solutions have developed and integrated cost-effective solutions for remotely monitoring and measuring levels of RH, temperature, and light in indoor environments. This accumulation of data allows a broader analysis of the potential impact towards buildings, occupants, objects, and residents. The detrimental effects of which are well-known, but their sustained presence remains a high concern. Implementing building monitoring can also help us to understand the contextual or lifestyle conditions which might be exacerbating problems, i.e. a lack of ventilation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Technical Implementation<\/b><\/p>

Caburn Solutions technical implementation is highly innovative as it uses prevalent smart-home technologies to interface with a local OEM gateway. The Caburn Solutions\u2019 gateway software is programmed onto a Java programming platform, providing gateway\/sensor integration\/management, and communications administration. The gateway uses low-overhead Mqtt IoT protocols to communicate over a multinetwork GSM modem and SIM card. This secure and encrypted transmission of data is then ingested from a Mqtt broker and stored using Microsoft Azure cloud systems. The data being presented via Caburn Solutions\u2019 own systems for dashboarding, charting and detailed historical analysis. They not only monitor data, but also the wide-area and local connectivity status of gateways and sensors, providing a visual\/historical log of any downtime. The systems also provide alerts to warn of preventative\/planned maintenance needs. For example, battery low warnings in sensors. The gateway utilises a low-voltage power-supply (5V), which includes an onboard battery to enable communication for up to 2-hours if power is lost. The systems also <\/span>provide notifications to residents via web-portal-access, email and SMS; Providing recommendations for corrective actions for improving air-quality and reducing the level of pollutants.<\/span> One instance being, measuring door and window opening\/closing for managing air-ventilation.<\/span><\/p>

Our solution for building monitoring is innovative and competes well as it is scalable and infrastructure independent; utilizing 3G\/4G GSM licensed networks (having the benefit of also being able to use fixed broadband if required). The system uses well-established open smart-home encrypted wireless device protocols such as ZigBee (The Zigbee Alliance) and Bluetooth. One benefit of Zigbee being the formation of a mesh-network between sensors to extend ranges between devices in the home. The flexibility of our IoT gateway technology means connecting new sensors via software downloads in the future is simple. Our other sensors (or new ones as they become available) can be easily added.<\/span><\/p>

The Intellectual Property of Caburn Solutions\u2019 system resides in; i) the Java based gateway software; ii) the Mqtt broker and subscriber interface; iii) the gateway and sensor management platform; iv) the connectivity management platform; and v) the data management platform. There is significant software development invested in the gateway, sensor data ingestion, storage, management platforms, and the data presentation\/notification systems. Involving; a) the aggregation of multiple sources of sensor and gateway data into a logical, organised and manageable structure; b) the storage of information; c) the selective presentation of data and management information into easy to understand web interfaces; d) the availability of live and historical histogram charts for any device and any measured parameter; e) the flexible configuration of sensors, gateways, and intervention parameters for creating alerts; f) the ability to allocate contacts for incident management for automatically communicating problems by email or SMS to appropriate stakeholders; g) the ability to audit connectivity for both the links between sensors and gateways, as well as between the gateways and the cloud\/server systems (and if necessary create alarms); h) the ability to create warnings for operational maintenance events (such as sensors or gateways being off-line, or sending low battery warnings).<\/span><\/p>

References<\/b><\/h3>

Atkinson, J. K., 2014. Environmental conditions for the safeguarding of collections: A background to the current debate on the control of relative humidity and temperature. <\/span>Studies in Conservation, <\/span><\/i>59(4), pp. 205-212.<\/span><\/p>

Boots, A. et al., 2012. The versatile use of exhaled volatile organic compounds in human health and disease. <\/span>Journal of breath research, <\/span><\/i>6(2), p. 027108.<\/span><\/p>

Brown, J. & Rose, W., 1996. Humidity and moisture in historic buildings: the origins of building and object conservation. <\/span>APT Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology, <\/span><\/i>27(3), pp. 12-23.<\/span><\/p>

Brown, N., 2019. Indoor air quality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Carter, E. et al., 2017. Assessing exposure to household air pollution: a systematic review and pooled analysis of carbon monoxide as a surrogate measure of particulate matter. <\/span>Environmental health perspectives, <\/span><\/i>127(5), p. 076002.<\/span><\/p>

Cincinelli, A. & Martellini, T., 2017. Indoor air quality and health.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Erhardt, D. & Mecklenburg, M., 1994. Relative humidity re-examined. <\/span>Studies in Conservation, <\/span><\/i>39(sup2), pp. 32-38.<\/span><\/p>

Garside, D., Curran, K., Korenberg, C. & MacDonald, L., 2017. How is museum lighting selected? An insight into current practice in UK museums. <\/span>Journal of the Institute of Conservation, <\/span><\/i>40(1), pp. 3-14.<\/span><\/p>

Kelly, F. & Fussell, J., 2019. Improving indoor air quality, health and performance within environments where people live, travel, learn and work.. <\/span>Atmospheric environment, <\/span><\/i>Volume 200, pp. 90-109.<\/span><\/p>

Lowen, A., Mubareka, S., Steel, J. & Palese, P., 2007. Influenza virus transmission is dependent on relative humidity and temperature. <\/span>PLoS Pathog, <\/span><\/i>3(10), p. 151.<\/span><\/p>

M\u00f8lhave, L., 1991. Volatile organic compounds, indoor air quality and health. <\/span>Indoor Air, <\/span><\/i>1(4), pp. 357-376.<\/span><\/p>

Myhrvold, A., Olsen, E. & Lauridsen, O., 1996. Indoor environment in schools\u2013pupils health and performance in regard to CO2 concentrations. <\/span>Indoor Air, <\/span><\/i>96(4), pp. 369-371.<\/span><\/p>

Neuhaus, E. & Schellen, H., 2006. <\/span>Conservation Heating to Control Relative Humidity and Create Museum Indoor Conditions in a Monumental Building. <\/span><\/i>s.l., Proceedings of the 27th AIVC conference-(EPIC2006AIVC): Technologies & sustainable policies for a radical decrease of the energy consumption in buildings, pp. 45-50.<\/span><\/p>

Northcross, A., Hwang, N., Balakrishnan, K. & Mehta, S., 2015. Assessing exposures to household air pollution in public health research and program evaluation. <\/span>Ecohealth, <\/span><\/i>12(1), p. 57\u201367.<\/span><\/p>

Pitarma, R., Marques, G. & Ferreira, B., 2017. Monitoring indoor air quality for enhanced occupational health. <\/span>Journal of medical systems, <\/span><\/i>41(2), p. 23.<\/span><\/p>

Rice, S., 2014. Human health risk assessment of CO2: survivors of Acute high-level exposure and populations sensitive to prolonged low-level exposure. <\/span>Environments, <\/span><\/i>3(5), pp. 7-15.<\/span><\/p>

Rumchev, K., Brown, H. & Spickett, J., 2007. Volatile organic compounds: do they present a risk to our health?. <\/span>Reviews on environmental health, <\/span><\/i>22(1), pp. 67-82.<\/span><\/p>

Santosh, D., Tiwari, K., Singh, V. & Reddy, A., 2017. Microclimate control in greenhouses. <\/span>Int. J. Curr. Microbiol. Appl. Sci, <\/span><\/i>Volume 6, pp. 1730-1742.<\/span><\/p>

Sarigiannis, D., Karakitsios, S., Gotti, A. L. I. & Katsoyiannis, A., 2011. Exposure to major volatile organic compounds and carbonyls in European indoor environments and associated health risk. <\/span>Environment international, <\/span><\/i>37(4), pp. 743-765.<\/span><\/p>

Sepp\u00e4nen, O., Fisk, W. & Mendell, M., 1999. Association of ventilation rates and CO2 concentrations with health andother responses in commercial and institutional buildings. <\/span>Indoor air, <\/span><\/i>9(4), pp. 226-252.<\/span><\/p>

Townsend, C. & Maynard, R., 2002. Effects on health of prolonged exposure to low concentrations of carbon monoxide. <\/span>Occupational and Environmental Medicine, <\/span><\/i>59(10), pp. 708-711.<\/span><\/p>

Watkinson, D. E., Rimmer, M. B. & Emmerson, N. J., 2019. The Influence of Relative Humidity and Intrinsic Chloride on Post-excavation Corrosion Rates of Archaeological Wrought Iron. <\/span>Studies in Conservation, <\/span><\/i>64(8), pp. 456-471.<\/span><\/p>

Wolkoff, P., 2018. Indoor air humidity, air quality, and health\u2013An overview.. <\/span>International journal of hygiene and environmental health, <\/span><\/i>221(3), pp. 376-390.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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