dwellings

We sleep more than twenty years during our lives. Sleep is essential for physical and psychological health. Yet, nearly no standards define indoor environmental quality conditions for optimal sleep. In this paper, we present a summary of studies examining the effects of bedroom ventilation on sleep quality. The results suggest that the current ventilation standards for dwellings are inadequate concerning requirements of outdoor air supply rates in bedrooms and need to be revised.

The need for airtightness control is a reality given its impact on buildings’ energy use and IAQ. For the past few years, this fact has resulted in energy performance regulations being established in many countries in Europe and North America. However, compliance proof is not always required, and on-site testing is often avoided. In this sense, predictive models have become useful in the decision-making process and to estimate input values in energy performance simulation tools.

The balcony is defined as an in-between architectural element that has the ability to intermediate the indoor and the outdoor environmental conditions. Through history, distinct balcony solutions have been used to improve the indoor environment according to their suitability to different contexts and climate conditions. The main aim of this study is to evaluate the impacts of different balconies on indoor environmental quality (IEQ) of dwellings in the mild climatic conditions of Portugal.

The design heat load of buildings is composed of maximal heat losses via ventilation, infiltration and transmission. Ventilation control possibilities can have an impact on these maximal simultaneous ventilation losses. An automated zonally and locally controlled residential mechanical extract ventilation system (rVST) was investigated with respect to the maximal occurring total extract rate during the heating period. The analysis was performed based on big field and simulated data of a smart connected ventilation system.

Current building regulations are designed to ensure that buildings, including newly built and retrofitted residential dwellings, are more energy efficient. This has raised concerns and practical challenges in relation to maintaining acceptable indoor environmental and air quality. However, there are minimal data available regarding long-term indoor air pollutant concentrations in low-energy residential buildings.

The current research investigates the relative humidity conditions in Swedish dwellings (678 apartments and single-family houses), comparing measurements from the 2007/2008 BETSI-survey (heating season), with the recommendations of the EN 16798:2019. Analysis shows that 61.4% of the apartments and 29.8% of the single-family houses belong to Cats. 3 and 4, which correspond to moderate and low level of expectation, respectively (mainly due to low relative humidity).

Common metrics used for assessing air quality are based on guidelines and/or standards for regulating concentrations that should not be exceeded over a period. Exceeding those values would represent problematic situations. A lack of agreement on appropriate norms or standards deem this approach sub-optimal. Moreover, this approach does not relate a proportion of exceedance to specific health outcomes.

The current policies and regulatory frameworks in the construction sector aim to improve energy efficiency of new buildings whilst maintaining acceptable level of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) including indoor air quality (IAQ). In practice, however, there are often important trade-offs between these objectives. The aim of this paper is to investigate the concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in a recently built residential block in the UK and the potential trade-offs between ventilation rates and VOCs.

There are three common methods used to analyse Indoor Air Quality in buildings: in-site measurements, laboratory measurements, or the simulation of indoor spaces using a validated computational model. Each have their advantages, but computational models are generally used to predict air quality in a wide range of indoor environments because they are quick, cheap, and non-invasive. A wide range of inputs are required to accurately simulate airflow and pollutant transport. However, this information may not exist or may only exist in abstract forms.

This paper describes Post Occupancy Evaluation survey and physical measurements of five families living for one year or longer in five houses located in Germany, Austria, France and UK, all part of the Model Home 2020 project. The houses are built according to Active House principles and focus on high performance on indoor environmental quality, energy performance and environmental impact. The survey is carried out seasonally during the test year when the family lives in the house to capture seasonal variations. Physical measurements were made in all main rooms of the houses.