Sensors to monitor residential air quality

Monitoring air quality in social and other housing to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for residents.
Health, Wellbeing and Social Value

Problem addressed

Currently, 99% of us are breathing toxic air. It’s an invisible killer causing 4.9 million premature deaths a year through strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and respiratory diseases. The problem is harder to tackle because most air pollution (particulate matter and VOCs) is invisible even at dangerous levels.

Furthermore, poor air quality in social housing is contributing to increased risk of various health conditions for residents and in some cases, mortality. However, there is a challenge in  identifying poor air quality due to pollution or damp before it becomes harmful to residents and in knowing where to prioritise interventions.

Solution overview

CompAir has developed a solution which involves installing air quality sensors into people’s homes. The data gathered by the low-cost sensors is provides a cost-saving triage service so that housing providers can identify issues before they become dangerous. The intention is that this will enable remedial action to be taken sooner, minimising the health risks to tenants.

The sensors themselves were developed in collaboration with UCL and use precision laser-optical technology to examine the air. The device detects key airborne pollutants including particulate matter (PM1, PM2.5 and PM10) which is emitted from engines, factories and other sources of combustion, CO2 and harmful Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) as well as measuring temperature and humidity (or damp). This information is sent via 3G/4G to CompAir’s cloud storage for analysis and reporting and can be made accessible to different stakeholders – including the landlord and tenant, encouraging action.

It is also possible to install the sensors externally to build a complete picture of an area and highlight problematic locations as well as to monitor air quality in warehousing, storage facilities and places of work in order to protect employees and merchandise from damage from air pollution, damp and mould.

The cost of the loss of warehouse stock or of treating the damage to a building caused by damp in a property can be punishingly high; but the cost to human beings is immeasurable. Recently, mould and damp caused the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in Rochdale and, previously, toxic air from a busy road killed Ella Kissi-Debrah in London.

Company name

CompAir

UK availability

Yes

Date added

Aug, 2023

Links

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Case study

CompAir is in the middle of a trial with a large housing provider and are awaiting data from this.

Facts and Figures

£1000 – £5000

average cost to repair a damp home in the UK

£50

cost of one CompAir monitor for one month

525,600

number of samples taken each year by one CompAir device

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