The energy and indoor climate performances of the recent housing stock in Belgium: outcome of the Vliet-Senvivv study.

A systematic analysis of recently constructed dwellings in the Flemish Region has been undertaken within the SENVIVV-project (1995-1998). In total 200 dwellings have been examined in detail. The study involved various aspects: energy related building data (thermal insulation level, net heating demand, installed heating power, .. ), indoor climate (temperature levels in winter and summer), building airtightness, ventilation, appreciation of the occupants, . . . This paper especially focuses on the results for thermal insulation, airtightness and ventilation.

Evaluation of ventilation characteristics of residential buildings based on multi room tracer gas decay experimental techniques.

Under the conditions that the air in each room is in the state of perfect mixing and ventilation is in steady state, a method to estimate steady state concentration distribution to match an arbitrary contaminant generation distribution is proposed, using concentration data obtained from short-time tracer gas experiment. Also, a method is proposed, which is used to estimate ventilation rate by adding other available equations.

Airflow patterns in Schonbrunn Palace.

The purpose of this study is to find more information of the complicated air flow pattern in the SchOnbrunn palace. The aim is to improve the control of the air infiltration. We have used a passive tracer gas technique, a special case of the constant injection technique, called the homogeneous emission technique. The results gives Air Change Rate's (ACH) of 0,7 to 1,7 in different rooms and parts of the palace. Wind driven ventilation dominates stack driven ventilation. We found a considerable air flow between floors.

Myths about building envelopes.

It is often assumed that commercial and institutional buildings are fairly airtight and that envelope air leakage does not have a significant impact on energy consumption and indoor air quality in these buildings. Furthermore, it is assumed that more recently constructed buildings are tighter than older buildings. However, very little data is available on the airtightness of building envelopes in commercial and institutional buildings.

Thermal environment and energy performance of well-insulated and airtight houses in Tohoku district of Japan.

Newly constructed residential houses in Japan are better insulated and more airtight than their predecessors to increase energy conservation. Although reduced energy consumption was expected, the energy performance of these buildings has not yet been clarified. Therefore, the indoor thermal environment and energy consumption in 300 well-insulated and airtight houses newly constructed in the Tohoku District, the northern part of Honshu Island, were investigated by a questionnaire survey.

Conclusions from ten years of Canadian attic research.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) conducted a series of attic research projects from 1988to1997. Initially, there were few field test data to substantiate how attics dealt with air and moisture transfer. The CMHC research developed a test protocol for attic airtightness and air change testing and then proceeded to field testing of a variety of attics in different climatic areas. An attic model, ATTIX, was referenced against test hut data and used to simulate attic performance across Canada.

Airtightness of U S dwellings.

Blower doors are used to measure the airtightness and air leakage of building envelopes. As existing dwellings in the United States are ventilated primarily through leaks in the building shell (i.e., infiltration) rather than by whole-house mechanical ventilation systems, quantification of airtightness data is critical in order to answer the following kinds of questions: What is the construction quality of the building envelope? Where are the air leakage pathways? How tight is the building? Tens of thousands of unique fan pressurization measurements have been made of U.S.

Bioclimatic design strategies in temperate climate. Consistency of passive cooling and heating.

In the temperate climate, the consistency of bioclimatic designs for heating and cooling is essential. However, the traditional Japanese houses which have excellent cooling techniques often disclose their poor thermal performance in the winter time. Since Jong it has been said that they sacrificed the heating performance in return for the cooling performance, as a result of their choice in the time when the consistency was technically impossible.

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