Air Quality & Dust Monitoring for Construction & Demolition Sites

Construction dust monitoring is the continuous measurement of coarse particulate matter (PM₁₀) at the boundary of a construction or demolition site, with alerts when readings cross a set action level. It is required when a planning condition, a permit, or a dust management plan says so, which is common for medium and high-risk sites near homes, schools, and hospitals, and in cities such as London and San Francisco that regulate dust from demolition and earthworks. Even where it is not required, a monitoring record is the quickest way to answer a neighbour's complaint, because it shows what the site emitted, when, and whether the controls worked.

Mostly coarse dust, with diesel exhaust close behind. Demolition, earthworks, cutting, and trackout from vehicle wheels release PM₁₀, the fraction that settles on cars and windowsills and triggers complaints. Diesel plant and non-road mobile machinery add fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), black carbon, and carbon monoxide (CO), which travel further and matter more for long-term health. A Clarity network covers all of them from one platform: the Dust Module measures PM₁₀ with near-reference accuracy, the Node-S measures PM₂.₅ and NO₂, the Black Carbon Module tracks diesel soot, and the Multi-Gas Module adds CO. Most sites start with PM₁₀ and add gases where the dust risk assessment calls for them.

By subtraction. A monitor on the upwind boundary measures the dust arriving at the site from roads, neighbouring works, and the regional background. A monitor on the downwind boundary measures that background plus whatever the site added. When the downwind reading rises and the upwind reading does not, the site is the source; when both rise together, it is not. The Wind Module records speed and direction alongside every reading, so the Clarity Dashboard tags each monitor upwind or downwind as the wind shifts during the day rather than relying on a fixed assumption. That pairing is what lets a site manager defend the site when a dust cloud on a windy afternoon came from somewhere else.

Most cannot, and that is the problem the Dust Module was built to solve. Commodity optical sensors are designed for fine particles and cannot reliably size anything above about 1 µm, so on a demolition site they under-read the coarse dust the monitoring is there to catch, and they saturate in heavy events. The Dust Module measures PM₁₀ directly with enhanced optics and a heated inlet that dries the sample in damp weather. It is MCERTS-certified with a performance range of 0 to 374 µg/m³, tested in the field against heated beta attenuation reference monitors at hourly concentrations well above typical site action levels. Indicative monitors like this do not replace reference instruments where a permit demands them, but they detect exceedances reliably and in real time, which is the job on a construction site.

It depends on where the site is and what the dust management plan says. In the UK, the Institute of Air Quality Management recommends a site action level of 190 µg/m³ of PM₁₀ as a one-hour mean. In the US, air districts and consultants commonly set a site-specific trigger above the local background, often on a 10-minute or 24-hour rolling average rather than a single hour. Whatever the number, two things matter more than the threshold itself: the alert must reach the person who can stop the dusty activity, and the record must show what happened next. The Clarity Dashboard supports site-specific action levels on 10-minute and 24-hour rolling averages, with email and SMS alerts to the site team and a log of who resolved each one.

The same day the fence goes up. Clarity monitors run on solar power with a battery and report over built-in cellular, so there is nothing to trench, no mains supply to arrange, and no site Wi-Fi to depend on. The Node-S with the Dust Module mounts on hoarding or a pole with standard brackets, and the external solar power system keeps the Dust Module running through winter light. Our team checks device health remotely, so a quiet monitor is flagged as a connectivity or battery issue rather than mistaken for clean air. When the project moves to the next phase or the next site, the monitors move with it, which suits short demolition contracts as well as multi-year builds.

Clarity prices construction dust monitoring as an annual Sensing-as-a-Service subscription rather than a hardware purchase. One fee per monitor covers the Node-S and Dust Module, solar power, cellular data, the Clarity Dashboard with alerts and exports, calibration and quality control, hardware replacement, and support. The total depends on how many boundary positions the dust risk assessment calls for, which Add-On Modules you need, and how long the works run. Because the monitors move with you, the same subscription covers the next site rather than leaving equipment in a yard between projects. Request a quote with the site boundary and programme and we will size the network and price it for you.