Abstract
The rapid urbanization after 1970s caused the shortage of dwellings in urban areas. As the result, the underground dwellings were developed to compensate for the insufficient dwelling spaces. While the underground dwellings have some advantage in the respect of thermal and acoustic environment, they usually have the basic problems in the indoor air quality because of the lack of natural ventilation through small window areas. The purpose of this study is to investigate and to improve the indoor air quality of underground dwellings. Thirty Units in Seoul and Gyung-Gi Province were investigated into the indoor environmental conditions. For the purpose of the improvement of their indoor air quality, Automatically-operated ventilating fan was installed in a sample unit which has worst indoor environmental condition. Then the indoor air quality was monitored when it was operated by $CO_2$ control system and timer. Finally economic feasibility study was made considering the effect of the improvement of indoor air quality. The extra cost for installing timer could be paid back only in 10 months, so timer-installed automatic fan is recommended to improve the indoor air quality of underground dwellings.