Assessment of airborne radon daughter concentrations in dwellings in Great Britain.

Calculations of the activity concentration of RaA (218 Po) in the air within living rooms and in the outside air were made at 87 dwellings in England and Scotland. From these measurements together with a determination of the ventilation rate existing in the room at the time of the measurements, the rate at which 222 Rn is emanating from room surfaces into room air in pci/l/h can be calculated.

Natural radiation in the urban environment.

Summarizes previous work on natural background radiation levels and reports some new data from Boston Mass.

Programmed computer model of air infiltration in small residential buildings with oil furnace.

Describes computer program for the prediction of the air infiltration load in small residential buildings. The model represents an oil-fired furnace, a smoke pipe with barometric damper, a chimney and a non-partitioned building, with leakage openings in the building envelope. The model can be used to predict the air change rate of a small house under various combinations of indoor/outdoor temperature, wind-speed, wind direction and operation of an oil fired furnace.

Encore-Canada: computer program for the study of energy consumption of residential buildings in Canada.

Describes the mathematical methods employed in the ENCORE-Canada computer program which predicts the hourly as well as the annual heating requirements of small residential-type buildings. The model includes the effects of thermal storage, internal heat gains, basement and air infiltration losses, transmission heatlosses and solar heat gains. The heating system is a thermostatically controlled oil-fired furnace with warm air distribution. Hourly solar radiation and weather data forvarious Canadian cities are used to simulate outdoor conditions.

Ventilation requirements in relation to the emanation of Radon from building materials.

Radon is a radioactive gas which diffuses naturally from all mineral based building materials. States for most homes, concentration of radon is approximately inversely proportional to the ventilation, although this is not valid for very low or very high air change rates. Gives brief results of measurements of concentration of radon in dwellings. Outlines health risks from radon and daughters. Reviews norms laid down in some countries for specific situations. Discusses ways of reducing radon concentrations.

Energy management and ventilation.

This paper is a general survey of work done on natural ventilation of dwellings. Discusses ventilation of houses with both natural and mechanical ventilation. Reviews experimental investigations, quoting air-change-rates found. Discusses ventilation requirements and methods for investigating different factors. Outlines suggested experimental method for investigating air infiltration of mechanically ventilated houses.

Methods for conducting small-scale pressurization tests, and air leakage data of multi-storey apartment buildings

The overall air leakage of high-rise buildings cannot be measured using a full pressure method because of the large volume involved. Describes a method of conducting small-scale pressurization tests on the exterior walls of apartments in multi-storey buildings. Gives results of measurements in a test building. compares direct method with values obtained by summing the air leakage of individual components. Finds good agreement. Concludes that floor/wall joints, windows and window sills are the three major air leakage sources in exterior walls.

Air infiltration model for residences.

Treats development of generalised model of hourly air infiltration in residences. Describes its testing. Uses tracer gas measurements of infiltration in 9 research residences inColumbus, Ohio, under widely varying weather conditions. Estimates various linear and physical models against 7000 measurements. Measures and correlates weather parameters. Correlation coefficients ranged around 0.9 with an error between 0.1 to 0.36 air changes. presents Fortran algorithm.

Ventilation requirements in houses and flats. Ventilationskrav i en-och flerfamilyshus.

Reports study of the ways in which different ventilation levels affect people part 1 of the study took place in Gavle. Air change rates, the amounts of radon and its derivatives were measured. Finds that ventilation installations are often poorly adjusted giving a wide variation between flats in the levels of air change. Amounts of radon and daughters were also higher than expected, due mainly to the poor ventilation. Concludes that lowering ventilation to present recommended level of 0.5 changesper hour cannot be recommended without further investigation.

Condensation risk and improved thermal performance of housing.

Considers the likely impact of alternative conservation measures on the incidence of surface and interstitial condensation on or within the elements of the building fabric. Considers specifically domestic buildings in temperate climates such as in the U.K. and Ireland. Outlines the mechanisms whereby condensation occurs and considers broadly the effect of reducing heating levels, reducing ventilation and increasing insulation.

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