Describes construction of two townhouses taking into consideration several technical issues: 1) limiting of indoor sources of contamination, 2) limiting contaminants off-gassed from construction materials, 3) limiting entry of exterior contaminants, 4) control of occupant generated contaminants by mechanical and by natural ventilation, and 5) control of indoor humidity The units are to be monitored over the next two years.
Buildings in cold climates must provide an indoor environment that is markedly different from that outdoors. The materials and components of the exterior envelope are subjected to large variations in conditions and greater demands are placed on the indoor environmental control system. Air pressure differences across building elements are augmented by buoyancy forces that influence air movement and indoor air quality. The potential for moisture condensation on and within the envelope is increased as is the danger of freezing in liquid systems.
Incidence of building occupant health and comfort complaints (tight building syndrome) have been linked to energy efficient, mechanically environmentally controlled sealed building technology and systems now characteristic to most office, commercial and publica buildings.
Measures of a number of ventilation parameters and of a number of pollutants from 21 locations furnished data for evaluating interrelations among commonly used descriptors of ventilation as well as their relation to frequently measured indoor gaseous and particulate pollutants.
The Linford project involved designing, building and monitoring 8 low energy passive solar houses. The houses were insulated to current Danish Regulation standards. Seven occupied and 1 unoccupied test house were monitored over two years.
The air infiltration component of house ventilation is calculated and discussed in relation to winter space heat losses and rneasures necessary to control moisture. The airtightness of 80 houses sampled from three major urban areas was inspected for association with location, external cladding materials, and design features such as the shape and complexity of the building envelope. A useful correlation of airtightness with envelope complexity emerged which gives a coarse but useful way of forecasting airtightness from building design information.
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