Georgia Indoor Air Coalition
The Georgia Indoor Air Coalition (GIAC) was formed in order to coordinate and share indoor air quality projects and information. Its members come from the government (Georgia Department of Community Affairs, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and several county health departments), private, academic (University of Georgia), and non-profit sectors (Southface Energy Institute, American Lung Association, Southern Regional Radon Training Center, Georgia Parent-Teacher Association)…just to name a few.
Purpose of the GIAC:
- to educate and motivate people on indoor air quality issues
- to pool the resources of the various organizations and agencies working with indoor air quality issues.
- to reduce indoor air pollutants and subsequently improve peoples’ health
Contact Michael Hintze, (404) 679-4853 or mhintze@dca.state.ga.us,
for more information on the GIAC.
The GIAC has two active sub-groups, one focused on indoor air quality in residential home construction, and the other focused on schools.
Schools
This sub-group has decided to commence its efforts by first focusing on asthma-related indoor air issues in schools. An estimated 17 million people have asthma in the United States. Nearly 35% of this astounding number are children (1). Asthma is the number one cause of school absences attributed to chronic illnesses, leading to an average of 4.6 school days missed annually (2). Asthma counts for ten million lost school days each year, which not only means lost learning time, but also time lost from the caretakers’ work (3,4).
The GIAC schools sub-group has adopted the following as its purpose:
To improve Indoor Air Quality in schools.
And this is how it intends to do it:
A. Create a proactive network of individuals both working and concerned with asthma.
B. Educate and assist parents, students and school personnel with the following tools:
1. Open Airways Asthma education
2. EPA’s IAQ Tools for Schools Program
3. Using available studies and research
C. Track and document results, making them available to all those interested.
Contact Cindy Gibson at (404) 562-9136 or gibson.cindy@epa.gov for more information on the schools sub-group within the GIAC.
Residential
This sub-group of the GIAC is focused on reducing radon, environmental tobacco smoke and mold in Georgia homes. It will achieve these objectives through education, testing and forming partnerships with those concerned with indoor air quality in homes.
Contact Robert Blake at (404) 508-7900 or rgblake@gdph.state.ga.usfor more information on the residential sub-group of the GIAC.
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
David G Shields
posted on May 14th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
We have an indoor air quality problem. We had it tested by a HVAC contractor who tested the air, found a very high level of particulate matter, and wanted almost $12,000 to fix the problem. We don’t trust this test and results because they were selling something. We called our builder (the home was less than two years old) and he sent out his HVAC man who declared that nothing was wrong. Both my wife and I have COPD and are really suffering while at home. I bought a Nikken air quality monitor and it shows we have a problem with particulate matter. I’ve collected some samples with a clean vacuum cleaner bag but I’ve had no luck in finding a test lab for them.
Can anyone recommend a lab?
By the way, we live in Suwanee and a quarry is just beyond our backyard.