Modern one-family houses in Scandinavia built before 1980 are often naturally ventilated and heated by electric baseboard heaters. The overall supply of fresh air is often inadequate during the heating season in many of these houses. Long periods of time individual rooms might get too little fresh air. The performance of a natural ventilation system is very much dependant upon the overall airtightness and the distribution of the airtightness of the building and the weather.
Air extraction in the kitchen is an essential element in all ventilation strategies for dwellings. This can be done by natural ventilation or mechanical extraction. In practice, the use of mechanical kitchen hoods is very common in Belgium. As part of a research carried out for the Belgian IWONL/JRSIA, the laboratory for Hygrothermics and Indoor Climate of BBRI carried out measurements to evaluate the efficiency of kitchen hoods. The test procedure applied at BBRI is a mix-up of two existing standards.
The new building and HVAC technology was used when an EBES multistorey residential building was built in Helsinki. In the EBES system the building structures are used as an installation space for the heating, piping, ventilation and electrical systems. Building structures are also used as a storage for heating and cooling energy. The main objectives of the overall EBES system are to improve the indoor air quality and energy economy and at the same time to improve the quality of the construction process and reduce costs.
Ventilation systems in dwellings should not only maintain the quality of the air, in other words limit pollutant concentration whatever the origin, but protect the structure, that is, limit condensation and the storage of excessive humidity in existing materials. Domestic ventilation represents a significant element of energy loss. It is a function that should be provided at minimum cost in terms of energy and therefore be directly dependent on fresh air requirements. Hence the introduction on the market af socalled hygro-adjustable ventilation systems.
This paper reports the results of humidity and ventilation measurements in occupied residential buildings to study the effect of airborne moisture movement on condensation risks. The dwellings have been fitted with a cooker hood and an extractor fan (both with variable speed control) in the kitchen and an extractor fan in the bathroom.
This report presents the results from the registration throughout a month of relative humidity, temperature and outdoor air exchange as well as the concentration of carbon dioxide in each room of an inhabited single family house, in which all rooms are ventilated by a mechanical balanced ventilation system with variable air volume. The outdoor air rate is controlled by the relative humidity, which is kept on a value adequate to reduce the living conditions for house dust mites and prevent condensation on the indoor surfaces of the building.
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