measurement

The objective of this study is to assess the ability to mitigate the airborne particle concentration in a mechanically ventilated meeting room with stand-alone air cleaners (ACs) as function of the amount and type of devices, the total airflow rate, the location(s) of the device(s) in the room and their flow pattern. Six commercially available ACs, selected to be representative of the French market, are included in the study, each featuring distinct airflow patterns for both air inlet and outlet.

All new dwellings in England and Wales are required to undergo a model-based overheating risk assessment prior to construction. An important model input is the building infiltration rate, which is usually estimated using a conversion factor on the dwelling airtightness. There is a paucity of evidence regarding the reliability of these methods in summertime. This aim of this paper is to provide new evidence on the relationship between airtightness and infiltration during summertime.

The main focus of this paper can be summarized in terms of the following two presuppositions: i) The process through which we select and apply indoor-environmental quality (IEQ) constructs could be – perhaps should be – improved; ii) Such improvement would contribute to formulation of more robust IEQ standards and guidelines.

The TAIL scheme was developed to rate buildings' indoor environmental quality (IEQ). The scheme was developed to assure that occupants' health and well-being are not compromised during deep energy renovation (DER) of office buildings and hotels, but it is expected that TAIL can also be used as a general rating scheme of IEQ in any building. TAIL combines the quality of Thermal, Acoustic and Luminous environment and Indoor air quality to determine the overall quality of the indoor environment.

The Airborne Infection Reduction through Building Operation and Design for SARS-CoV-2 (AIRBODS ) project aim is to deliver guidance on the ventilation operation and future design of non-domestic buildings and to quantify the risk of, and reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in buildings. It is doing this through experimentation, computer simulation and fieldwork supporting the guidance and tools.

Purpose of the work

I have already talked about the issue of airtightness designs in Swiss standards at the Buildair Conference in 2015. What are the challenges we are facing two years later, regarding airtightness in Switzerland? And which of the issues in this context could be of interest for other countries?

Purpose of the work

Based on the results of the FLiB e.V. research project „Evaluation of leakages in airtight layers – Recommendations for action for construction professionals”, testing methods in building practice for the detection, analysis, and evaluation of leakages are put up for discussion.

Method of approach

Research indicates that low-energy dwellings are more sensitive to overheating than regular dwellings. In this research the ventilative cooling potential of low-energy dwellings is considered. A low-energy dwelling based on the Active House concept, “House of Tomorrow Today” (HoTT), has been investigated as representative for low-energy dwellings in general. A computational model of the house was created with the software TRNSYS (in combination with CONTAM) and this model has been calibrated with actual (intervention) measurements in the HoTT.

Infiltration is an uncontrolled contribution to ventilation in a building and can contribute significantly to the total ventilation rate, particularly in older, leaky, dwellings which can rely on infiltration to provide adequate indoor air quality. However, as explored in this paper, using a whole house airtightness metric to characterise ventilation rates can fail to identify low ventilation rates in specific rooms. 

Since the 1970s, many authors have discussed the impact of poor airtightness on building energy use, indoor air quality, building damage, or noise transmission. Nowadays, because poor airtightness affects significantly the energy performance of buildings, and even more significantly with low-energy targets, many countries include requirements for building airtightness in their national regulations or energy-efficiency programs. Building pressurization tests are increasingly used for compliance checks to energy performance requirements and may result in severe penalties.