Spyros Efthymiopoulos is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Civil Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE) at UCL. He completed the MEng Mechanical Engineering at the University of Western Macedonia and has graduated from the MSc Built Environment: Environmental Design and Engineering. Spyros is involved in research related to indoor mould growth testing and benchmarking and has research experience on the topic of indoor air quality. Recently he has become a member of an interdisciplinary research team from UCL focusing on the holistic low-carbon retrofit of historic building.

His PhD Title is: Benchmarking the indoor mould levels for the UK building stock

Brief description of the project:

Mould growth affects many properties in the UK and may lead to fabric damage or health implication. However, no standard has been developed to provide guidance on the selection of a widely accepted protocol or information on acceptable mould levels in the indoor environment.
The project focuses on the determination of a robust and rigorous testing protocol for the assessment of indoor mould. Through an experimental process, the study will analyse the merits and limitations of active and passive sampling. The analysis will assist in the effort to create a well-defined framework that will inform researchers of appropriate testing protocols based on the aims of their investigations.
A number of residential properties will be tested in order to benchmark mould levels in the UK building stock. Physical inspections of the properties and examination of usage-related characteristics will complement the tests to gain information on the performance of the buildings and the occupants’ lifestyle. The results extracted will allow the identification of potential interrelationships between mould contamination, performance indicators and the energy behaviour of the occupants.

Supervisors: Yasemin D. Aktas, Hector Altamirano-Medina