Indoor air quality assessement and its perception. Case study historic wooden church, Romania

Abstract

Inside of the historic wooden church airborne indoor bacteria and fungi were assessed. This was determined through air quality sampling using the ,,open plate technique". Petri dish containing Sabouraud medium was used for fungi test, Actinomycetes Isolation Agar and Plate Count Agar for filamentous bacteria and for aerobic mesophilic bacteria, respectively. The bacteria isolated were: Staphylococcus sp., Micrococcus sp., Bacillus sp. and Actinomyces sp. Determination of most common fungi: Aspergillus sp., Penicillium sp.. Alternaria sp., Paecilomyces sp., Cladosporium sp., Stachybotrys sp., Chaetomium sp., Absidia sp., Trichoderma sp., Trichotecium sp., Scopulariopsis sp., Aureobasidium sp. The yeasts belonging to Rhodotorula and Candida species were also isolated. The microorganisms present in indoor air of the wooden curch indicates an intermediate level of contamination according to the guidelines of the sanitary standards. To broaden the data obtained, we conducted a focus group in order to emphasize the subjective assessment of indoor air quality inside the wooden church. Qualitative results are complementary with our air contamination tests results.