InspectAPedia.com® - is a free online encyclopedia of building construction, new or remodel/repair, maintenance or mechanical system or indoor environment troubleshooting.

This website is for building owners, occupants, renters, contractors, and building professionals including architects, engineers, and building inspectors.

We provide free building construction, inspection, testing, diagnosis, repair, & problem prevention advice, covering all residential & light commercial building components, materials, & mechanical systems.

Whether your building is brand new or hundreds of years old there will always be things to diagnose, fix, maintain, or indoor environment problems or air quality problems related to the building's condition.

Here you will also find illustrated, detailed, in-depth research on finding, diagnosing, testing, correcting, & preventing building defects, energy conservation, & indoor environmental hazards.

Photo above: when his knee was broken, the InspectApedia publisher demonstrated that building crawl spaces should be inspected no matter how difficult the access may be. In that case the editor got help from another inspector, Arlene Puentes.

We provide authoritative, un-biased research on building failures & education course material on building failures & building environmental inspection testing, diagnosis, & repair.

Researching and publishing since 1986, InspectApedia tolerates no conflicts of interest. We have no relationship with advertisers, products, or services discussed at this website. InspectAPedia, always FREE to our readers, is supported only by ads placed on our pages by Google. See WHO ARE WE?

Up Front: Smoke, Fires, Building Fire Protection, Indoor & Outdoor Air Quality

Climate information from the U.S. government that shows that the world is heating up faster and severe storms are occurring more-frequently than many people realized and that emphasizes that every community, rural or urban, will be seriously affected.

The U.S. EPA has painted what the NY Times calls a "grim picture" of what lies ahead, whether your concern is sudden searing heat, wildfires, tornadoes or other heavy weather, access to safe drinking water, or even adequate electricity.

Photo: wildfire smoke outside San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato, Mexico, January 2025.

How to Reduce Wildfire Smoke & Soot Hazards in Buildings: 4 Key Steps

Even for people well outside the immediate area of wildfire desctruction and safety hazards there can be serious air quality concerns, particularly for people who are more vulnerable such as the elderly, infants, asthmatics.

If you safely outside of but are close enough to an active or recent wildfire to be affected or to smell or see smoke, here are 4 key steps you can take to reduce the level of smoke or other airborne particles inside your building:

1. Close the windows and doors
   
   Avoid ventilating the building with outdoor air when that air is unusually heavily contaminated with smoke and debris. You'll fare better by closing the building and doing what you can to filter its indoor air.
   
   An exception: some fresh air ventilation systems incorporate both an air-to-air heat exchanger and an air filter. Those, equipped with a HEPA filter, might permit filtered fresh-air ventilation for your building.
   
   See VENTILATION, BALANCED

Photo below: a microscopic view of fire soot particles enlarged about 1200 times.

2. Filter indoor air:
   
   Particles and gases in fire smoke can contain a wide range of harmful substances beyond soot (photo above), most of which can be reduced indoors by high quality air filtration.
   
   If your building has forced air heating or central air conditioning, turn the system fan from AUTO to MAN or ON so that the blower fan runs continually
   
   See BLOWER FAN CONTINUOUS OPERATION  - Continuous HVAC Blower Fan Operation for Optimum Indoor Air Quality
3. Clean air filters:
   
   Be sure that the air filter(s) in your air handling system are clean, or replace them if they're dirty and are not a washable type.
   
   If you don 't know where your air filters are,
   
   See AIR FILTER LOCATION
   
   To improve your air filter's effectiveness
   
   See AIR FILTER OPTIMUM INDOOR  - Cascaded & Optimal Air Filters for IAQ . We recommend using HEPA-rated filters as those perform best at removing small airborne particles.
4. Portable air cleaners:
   
   If your building doesn't have air conditioning or forced air heating, you can still add free-standing portable air cleaners to reduce the level of indoor articles in sleeping areas and close the door to those rooms when using the air cleaner.
   
   While no portable air cleaner can remove the actual source of indoor air pollution, especially in a closed room of a size within the air cleaner's or "air purifier" rated capacity, these machines can reduce the level of airborne particles.
   
   See details at AIR CLEANER PURIFIER TYPES.
5. Wear an N95-rated or KN95-rated face mask even while indoors.
   
   Every unbiased expert agrees that wearing an N95 mask is important for protecting respiratory health such as during the COVID epidemic or in serious wildfire smoke conditions.
   
   Really? Well yes but ... some people who have limited lung capacity may find wearing a face mask or a true respirator uncomfortable or difficult.
   
   Experiment. Wear an N95 mask for an hour and see if it helps you to breathe more comfortably.

Up Front: Handling the Heat - Shading, Fans, Cooling Systems

Record outdoor temperatures around the world are contributing to an increase in heat stroke deaths, discomfort, exhaustion, and where air conditioning is available, increased cooling costs.

Shown here, using a top hinged solar shade device like this one on Tucson Arizona structure can reduced solar heat gain for a cooler building interior.

Our page top photo shows an outside view of a similar solar shade in Buenos Aires.

These InspectAPedia articles can help keep your building cooler and reduce cooling costs:

• DIAGNOSTIC GUIDE A/C or HEAT PUMP - diagnose an air conditioner that's not cooling
• GLASS vs HEAT MIRROR SOLAR GAIN/Loss - different approaches to keeping the heat outside by choosing heat reflecting window glass
• PATIO AWNING INSTALLATION - simple mechanical shading for larger outdoor spaces also reduce solar gain at windows, doors, and walls.
• SOLAR SHADES & SUNSCREENS - effective, comparatively low cost steps for a cooler building
• SOLAR SHADES, LOW-E EFFECTIVENESS - is low-e worth the extra cost?
• SPLIT SYSTEM AC / HEAT PUMP REPAIRS - fix your splilt system air conditioner
• SUNGAIN, FILMS, LOW-E GLASS - use of Sungain film on windows and window film selection and installation

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