When does a “Smell” become an “Odor”, and an Odor become a “Nuisance Odor”?

When does a “Smell” become an “Odor”, and an Odor become a “Nuisance Odor”?

There are all kinds of “smells” that impact indoor air quality. You can walk in a mall and smell the Cinnabon  food court smell and as you walk past a perfume retailer you are met with a number of perfume smells and colognes to the point it almost takes your breath away. As our team at Aerisa reaches out to help improve Indoor Air Quality ( IAQ) I found myself needing to understand;

When does a “Smell” become an “Odor”, and an Odor become a “Nuisance Odor”?

A smell is “the ability of humans and other animals to perceive odors”

An odor is “is caused by one or more volatilized chemical compounds, generally at a very low concentration, that humans or other animals perceive by the sense of olfaction. Odors are also called scents, which can refer to both pleasant and unpleasant odors.”

A Nuisance is “that which causes offence, annoyance, trouble or injury”

So a “Nuisance Odor” is a “scent that causes offense, annoyance, trouble or injury”

The EPA defined “Nuisance Odor” as; Odor that is determined to be non-hazardous or non-toxic. Interesting, so what is a “hazardous odor”? A “hazardous odor” is; “an odor that is determined to be hazardous or toxic.” This helps me as I often hear people in the HVAC industry, and the Waste Water Treatment industry interchanging the words; smell, odor, nuisance odor, and hazardous odor.

So I went out on the internet and found a very informative paper: The “Gray Line” Between Odor Nuisance and Health Effects by Michael A. McGinley, MHS and St. Croix Sensory, Inc.

This report went on to share the Citizen Complaint Pyramid that I found very informative. It explains how an odor episode becomes a complaint and the path to a complaint is;

                                                         Odor Episode

                                                         Character

                                                         Intensity

                                                         Duration

                                                         Frequency

                                                         Odor Complaint

What are the smells impacting your Indoor Air Quality?

Can a smell pleasant to one person be a Nuisance odor to another?

What about the odors we can not smell that can be hazardous…what are some of the leading agents in the air we can not smell but can hurt us?

Is there a “smell” some people feel is pleasant that you find a Nuisance?

Are their pleasant odors that can become hazardous to some people?

This desire to provide clean breathable air for indoor air quality is interesting as it seems to have as much variability in definitions as it one has between what is a pleasant smell for one person versus a nuisance odor for another. The key is to identify and clearly define what is the desired indoor air quality, measure it, mitigate hazardous and nuisance odors and provide on-going monitoring should the indoor environment change.