ECRC Capenhurst co-operated with two firms of builders to design, build and sell four low energy houses. The houses were insulated to a high standard and fitted with mechanical ventilation. The average annual space heating energy consumption of the four houses was some 6,000 kWh, 95% of which was provided at low tariff rate by storage heaters. The whole house average temperature over the heating season ranged from 17.6 to 20.3 degrees C for the four houses.
Summary of an APCA International Speciality Conference. Contains information on some relatively unfamiliar trace gases and fungi, as well as on the better known indoor air pollutants. Studies range from those on human health tothose concentrating on pollutant emissions to those addressing building ventilation. Papers also cover sick building syndrome and pollutant and ventilation surveys.
Centrally controlled mechanical exhaust air ventilation systems in residential buildings can satisfactorily serve only a few of the inhabitants. As the need for ventilation in each apartment varies both temporally and locally, the exhaust air ventilation system should operate accordingly. On the basis of a new cascade-control method a selfcontained constant flow exhaust air terminal device was constructed. With the device the user can, according to his own needs, increase temporarily his own exhaust air ventilation.
The need for reduced energy consumption has led to an overall decrease of air infiltration rates in buildings. particularly in dwellings. Unfortunately. this has given rise to a significant number of problems involving condensation. with resulting damage to the structure and contents of affected buildings. Various means of condensation control are available. The use of a passive ventilation system to achieve this aim has several attractions. not the least of which is that the occupants of houses fitted with such a system need little. if any, knowledge of the principles involved.
After years of intensive studies on indoor air pollution sources, pollution levels, condensation effects, building airtightness, and air change rates, we are now at the point to discover that no solution whatsoever to the ventilation problem is possible if compatibility with user comfort and user habits are not properly taken into account. User compatibility of aventilation strategy under todays conditions in dwellings must in fact be understood as a requirement equivalent to the purely functional ones of pollutant removal and of economy.
The buildings built according to the latest construction technology aiming at energy saving are as tight as possible. The ventilation of a tight building has to be completely mechanical (supply and exhaust a i r system). The heating of the building can also be included in the mechanical ventilation system with small additions. The new warm air heating system developed at the Laboratory of Heating and Ventilating of the Technical Research Centre of Finland is therefore called ventilation heating system.
The occupants' behaviour is one of the parameters which has the greatest influence on the air change in the dwelling. This applies both to naturally and to mechanically ventilated dwellings. On the basis of continuous measurement of the air change in 25 dwellings, the relation between the ventilation system and air change and between the number of occupants and air change is discussed. The air change in the 25 dwellings has been measured for a period of about one week during occupancy. The measuring principle applied is "the method with constant concentration of tracer gas".
Within the framework of the national research project "Ventilationin Housing Construction", studies on occupants ' ventilation behaviour were conducted in a demonstration building in Duisburg- Neumuhl (Federal Rep. of Germany) which also formed part of the project . Analyses were based on values measured from Jan, 1 - Dec. 31, 1984 in 24 flats with identical ground plans, all of which were equipped with mechanical ventilation systems.
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