An investigation was carried out in a multi-family building in New Jersey, USA of eight apartments, including resident interviews about air conditioner usage. Energy consumption for cooling varied widely across similar apartments, due to occupants' diverse beliefs about machine operation and economic considerations. 75% of residents did not use the thermostats, preferring to switch the system on and off according to comfort needs. Concludes that the problem is not lack of user education, but rather poor user-friendliness of air conditioner controls.
Measured ozone decay rates were found to be significantly correlated with house type and the number of bedrooms for a monitoring project of 43 California homes. The observed decay rates were higher in multiple-family homes and homes with fewer than three bedrooms. Homes with higher surface-area-to-volume ratios had higher decay rates.
A move to mechanically ventilated low-dust mite affected, 'healthy' homes was investigated in relation to asthma control. Fourteen patients, allergic to dust mite allergens, were studied. Clinical improvements were significant in the patients, in contrast to the control patients. The study found a significant relation between reduction in medicine score and the fall in house dust mite exposure.
Study aimed to assess the effectiveness of domestic air duct sanitation services in reducing indoor aeroallergens. Sampling for fungal colony forming units was carried out in eight residences in winter and seven in summer, before and after a local company carried out duct sanitation procedures. Two houses were used as controls. Baseline CFUs were similar in control and study houses. The study homes showed an overall CFU reduction of 92% in winter and 84% in summer, eight weeks after cleaning. The controls showed no reduction.
Describes a study of indoor aeromycota in 15 homes in Canada. Significant differences in airborne spore concentrations were found in the different types of room. Living rooms held the highest count of airborne propagules, followed by family rooms, kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. Kitchens had the greatest variety of fungi. Increased numbers of spores were the result of dampness and carpets, in general. Concentrations of airborne fungi were found to be reduced by the presence of forced air heating systems, humidifiers, air filters and air conditioners.
The effect of residential central air conditioning on indoor spore counts was investigated. Six pairs of residential buildings were monitored for three days. The homes were both air conditioned and non-air-conditioned. An Andersen sampler was used and outdoor measurements were also taken. Kitchens and bedrooms of air conditioned homes revealed significantly lower spore counts. The study used multiple regression analysis to show that the lower spore counts were associated with lower relative humidity.
The most important indoor particle sources in the four single family homes studied were found to be cooking, cleaning and the movement of people. The sources contributed significantly to indoor concentration and to altered indoor particle size distributions. Air exchange rates ranged between 0.12 and 24.3 ach and impacted on indoor particle levels and size distributions.
The authors used data from the Children's Respiratory Study in Tuscon, Arizona, USA to study the relationship between home environment and lower respiratory tract illness in infants. Health babies were recruited at birth. In the first year, 196 babies (21%) had wheezing LRI and 60 (6%) had non-wheezing LRI. Wheezing risk was higher for babies with evaporative home cooling (24%). Non-wheezing LRI linked with parents' rating of neighbourhood dust levels. There was no relation to type of home heating, cooking fuel, or pets.
The determination of building insulation levels is an indispensable part of low-energy residential building design. It is necessary to study the impacts of varying insulationlevels of outer walls and roof on room heating loads and cooling loads per square metre. Although diversity of researches on this subject have been carried out over the past years, simulation models have not been employed to evaluate the energy saving effect of different insulation levels all year, and the results were not quantitatively analysed.
This study investigates the impacts of the three different types of carpark namely open (on surface), multistory and integrated carpark. The 1:200 scaled models were used in wind tunnel to gather pressure distribution data on the exterior surface of surrounding housing blocks. The data were collected from testing the various wind directions on different types of carpark. Using pressure coefficient (Cp) values, the ventilation performances represented by air change rate (ACH) in the selected units were calculated using CONTAM.
Login