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I'm considering renting an apartment on the first floor right on a boulevard with a heavy bus traffic. The main air supply to the apartment is from that road, so it's pretty obvious you get a lot of polluted air.

From an air quality report about this road, it seems that during rush hours this road has 100-216 mg/m3 of NO2 and 300-1020 mg/m3 of NOx.

Since I have no idea what those numbers mean except that it has some red-colored font on the report, I would like to ask - how bad is that to live in this place for a year or more?

Thanks a lot!

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    If air quality monitoring stations measure these concentrations at street level, the concentrations at your air inlet are not necessarily equal. You can expect (depending on the street canyon!) dillution of the NOx concentrations with increasing height and distance to the street. Therefore, it is difficult to evaluate, how you will be impacted in your flat. Having said that: you might travel through this and similar streets at rush hour. It might be that your NOx intake during these journeys is higher than during the time staying in your flat. (But it might be also the other way around). – daniel.neumann Nov 16 '16 at 13:24
  • NO2 and NOx may not be your biggest problems. Recent studies suggest that ultrafine particles may be the real problem living near highways. bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/03/04/… As to specifics on how dangerous something is, the risk assessment is very difficult to put numbers to. How long will you live there? What is your DNA/Family risk of heart trouble? How much money will you save if you stay there and can that help you in other ways? – userLTK Nov 18 '16 at 3:26

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