Sample report — Brownstone Air

Home air & water report

Floor‑through co‑op · Park Slope

Prepared September 2026 · Family of four, one on the way · SAMPLE

The short version: this is a healthy home with two fixable habits and one $0 change that will meaningfully improve the nursery. Nothing found requires a specialist. Full findings below.

The kitchen spikes when the hood is off. During the cooking test, fine particles peaked at 142 µg/m³ — about 14× your home's baseline — and drifted to the nursery hallway. With the hood running and a window cracked, the same dish peaked at 38. This is a habit fix first, an upgrade later.

The nursery runs stuffy by 5 a.m. With the door closed, CO₂ climbed to 1,480 ppm overnight — past the ~1,000 ppm ventilation benchmark and into restless‑sleep territory — a build‑up you'd never feel from the doorway at bedtime, because it peaks while everyone's asleep. Retested with the door ajar: 790. If your household keeps bedroom doors closed for fire safety, the transfer‑grille option in the fix list does the same job with the door shut. Cost of fix: $0.

Everything else reads clean. Whole‑home PM2.5 averaged 6 µg/m³ (WHO 24‑hour guideline: 15). Humidity sits in the 30–50% band everywhere except the garden‑level office (58% — dehumidifier sized below). Water: no meaningful lead signal.

Room by room

Readings at a glance

Room	PM2.5 µg/m³	CO₂ peak ppm	RH %	Read
Parlor	5	720	44	GOOD
Kitchen (cooking test)	142 → 38*	880	46	HABIT FIX
Primary bedroom	6	940	42	GOOD
Nursery (overnight)	6	1,480 → 790*	45	$0 FIX
Garden‑level office	7	810	58	DEHUMIDIFY
Bath (post‑shower)	—	—	71 → 49*	FAN WORKS

* after the recommended change, measured same visit or overnight retest. Benchmarks: WHO 24‑h PM2.5 guideline 15 µg/m³; EPA annual standard 9; ~1,000 ppm CO₂ ventilation convention; 30–50% RH comfort‑and‑allergen band.

Chart 01 · the cooking test

Same pan, two habits

Hood off (recirculating) Hood on + window cracked

PM2.5, µg/m³, measured at the kitchen counter while pan‑searing. Your hood recirculates rather than venting out — running it still cuts the peak by ~73% when paired with a cracked window. Upgrade path in the fix list.

Chart 02 · the night

The nursery, 8 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Door closed (night 1) Door ajar (retest night)

CO₂ in ppm from the overnight logger. The room itself is fine — it's simply sealed too well. A door ajar (or the transfer‑grille option in the fix list, if you prefer the door closed) keeps the whole night under the benchmark. Most homes need only the single overnight; when a finding warrants it, a retest night is included — the logger stays one more day and pickup simply shifts.

The water panel · +$195 add‑on

Kitchen tap, two samples, ELAP‑certified lab

Sample	Lead, ppb	Copper, ppm	Read
First draw (sat overnight)	3.1	0.31	LOW
After 60‑second flush	0.9	0.09	LOW

Context, plainly: no amount of lead is considered “safe,” so lower is always better — NYC schools act at 5 ppb, and the federal action levels are 10 ppb for lead and 1.3 ppm for copper. Your first‑draw/flush gap points to a small fixture contribution, not the service line — and the city’s service‑line map lists this building as non‑lead, consistent with the flush number. Recommendation: the free habit (run the tap ~30 seconds after long sits, especially for formula water), and an NSF‑53 certified filter if you want the number nearer zero. Full protocol: the water panel.

The fix list

In order of return on effort

Free, this week

Nursery door ajar at night (or see the grille option below). Retest data above — this alone fixes the biggest finding.
Cooking habit: hood on before the pan, back burners, window cracked for searing and frying.
Kitchen tap: 30‑second flush after overnight sits, always for formula water.

Under $150

Garden office: dehumidifier sized ~30 pints/day for the square footage; target 45–50% RH. (Two models that fit, by spec, in the appendix.)
HVAC filter: your cabinet takes a 16×25×1 — move to MERV 13 at the next change; your blower handles it.
Smoke‑season kit: one HEPA purifier for the primary bedroom, smoke CADR ≥ 130 for the room's 195 sq ft.

Worth pricing

Vent the range hood outside (currently recirculating). A licensed HVAC contractor can quote the duct run; this is the single biggest permanent upgrade available to this kitchen.
If your household keeps bedroom doors closed at night for fire safety (“close before you doze”): a transfer grille or door undercut moves the air with the door shut — small carpentry job, worth bundling with other work.

Scope, kept honest

What this report doesn't cover

This is a screening with professional‑grade instruments — not specialist environmental testing. Asbestos, lead paint, radon, and similar licensed domains are outside its scope; nothing observed in this home suggested a specialist was needed, and if it had, that referral would be written here, plainly. VOC lab speciation is likewise out of scope; guidance on sources and ventilation appears in the appendix. Instruments, benchmarks, and methods: brownstoneair.com/method.

This is what $395 buys.