The C-2000 program for advances commercial buildings is an awards program to assist in the development of energy efficient and sustainable building technologies and design in Canada. The objectives of the C-2000 program are to develop energy efficient buildings using sustainable materials and technologies. The buildings must provide a high level of occupant comfort. The technology must be transferable to the current building industry and must meet market constraints.
The use of IR detectors to steer the ventilation is in principle an attractive approach for optimising the ventilation according to the occupants needs. In order to evaluate the performances under real conditions, one of the BBRI office buildings in Limelette (some 31 offices with in total 51 persons and a variable occupation load) was equipped with a mechanical supply ventilation system in which each terminal is controlled by an IR detector.
Airtightness and infiltration rate measurements in office and other commercial buildings have shown that these buildings can experience significant levels of air leakage [1,2]. The energy impact of air leakage in U.S. office buildings was estimated based on the analysis of a set of 25 buildings used in previous studies of energy consumption [3,4]. Each of these buildings represents a portion of the U.S. office building stock as of 1995.
Office workers continue to complain about air quality problems, and a significant industry has developed to measure pollutants and environmental conditions such as temperatures and humidity. The effectiveness of the ventilation system is often ignored because it is a difficult measurement to carry out and interpret. The results contained in this paper make a start towards understanding the performance of mechanical ventilation in New Zealand office buildings.
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