This paper sums up the knowledge on good and bad effects of ventilation on health and other human responses. The focus is on working environment in offices and residential buildings.
This paper describes the smoke control aspects of twonaturally ventilated high-rise office buildings with operable windows. One utilizes its operable windows in conjunction with an HVAC system to provide tenants with fresh air. The other utilizes a series of automatically controlled windows and
vents in conjunction with tenant-controlled windows to provide ventilation. Both buildings, located in San Francisco, were designed under the Uniform Building Code.
The aim of that study was to assess the impact in an office environment of absolute and relative humidity, temperature and humidification on workers' skin and upper airway symptoms (such as nasal or pharyngeal dryness, eyes problems, congestion). Physical factors associated with symptoms and perceptions were appraised with logistic regression models.
This paper discusses research conducted to determine the status of indoor air chemicalpollution caused by formaldehyde in government offices in 2001. This research involvedmeasurements of formaldehyde concentration and questionnaires on the office rooms inapproximately 300 buildings.
Twenty five cellular offices in the Wilkinson Building at the University of Sydney, Australia are ventilated through operable windows and doors and have been retrofitted with a supplementary reverse cycle cooling/heating system with an occupant controlled fancoil unit in each room. Energy consumption and occupancy and temperature status of rooms have been monitored since the system was commissioned at the end of 1997.
A questionnaire study (on ventilation, surface materials, heating and cooling) was performed on 3562 employees working in 32 buildings without previously known indoor air problems.The associations between symptom prevalence and building characteristics are reported in this paper.
In the EDF comfort-laboratory, realistic environmental chambers have been designed, furnished and decorated like offices and flats. A large panel of representative consumers has been evaluated on their preferences in terms of comfort, in parallel a small panel of trained experts has carried out sensation measurements. Then a correlation between the data of both studies has been used to explain the preferences in terms of sensations (sensation mapping).
Even in cold climates, offices normally need to be cooled due to the internal heat loads from people, equipment and lighting. Either a chilled ceiling or chilled beams with cooled water as medium or chilled air can be used. In the case with chilled ceiling or chilled beams, a constant air volume system (CAV) is used. In the case of air only, a variable air volume (VAV) system must be used. This paper presents the advantages of the two methods of cooling with respect to energy use, which was calculated from climate data.
The annual energy cost and first cost of the HVAC system, life-cycle costs (LCC) and benefits of improved productivity were simulated in an office building located in a cold climate when improvements of air quality were made by increasing the outdoor air supply rate and by reducing the pollution loads. The building was ventilated by a variable air volume (VAV) system with an economizer or a constant air volume (CAV) system with heat recovery. The pollution loads were assumed to be similar to those in a non-low-polluting or low-polluting building.
We have investigated the effect of UVC on IAQ in a ventilation plant in a typical office building. The UVC-system consisted of UVC-lights for irradiation on all central components in the air handling unit. A similar ventilation plant, but without UVC, was chosen as a reference plant. Microorganisms on surfaces, living airborne mould spores and MVOC (Microbial Volatile Organic Compounds) were sampled throughout the ventilation plant and in corresponding rooms before and after UVC-irradiation. In addition, parallel measurements in the reference plant were conducted.