Fireplaces have occupied an important place in North American households for more than 400 years. They have acted as a place where the food was cooked, where people gathered around to talk at the end of the day and hopefully, where they could get warm. Even today, builders find it difficult to sell a new house which does not have a fireplace. However, housing characteristics have changed remarkably, particularly over the last 25 years.

A great number of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are found in the indoor air of office buildings, emitted mainly by the building materials, the consumer products used, the furnishing, office equipment, smoking, mechanical ventilation systems and outdoor air pollution. An attempt has been made to identify the strongest sources of VOCs in the indoor and outdoor air of six office buildings in Greece. Analysis of the results showed that the VOCs in the outdoor air were strongly related to the traffic in the area.

Field monitoring was conducted in office buildings in Seattle and Dallas to assess the effectiveness of various workplace smoking configurations in controlling non-smokers exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Simultaneous measurements of vapour-phase and particle-phase tracers of ETS were conducted in adjacent smoking and non-smoking areas. Pressure relationships between smoking and non-smoking areas were determined. The Seattle portion of the study focused on the direct infiltration of ETS from smoking to non-smoking areas, as minimal recirculation of return air was occurring.