test house

This paper aims to present the elaboration of a device able to modify the airtightness of a test House. This project has been conducted with three Master student groups in the framework of their research projects from 2015 to 2017. The TIPEE IEQ test House, comprising of two floors and eight rooms, is dedicated to the study of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), thermal comfort and energy consumption. Its envelope has been designed to reach an airtightness target slightly lower than the French Energy Efficiency Standard RT2012 requirement for dwellings i.e.

The New Zealand Building Code has kept with tradition in allowing residential building ventilationdesigns based entirely on openable window areas. Working against this tradition, however, is a trend inNew Zealand towards more airtight construction and declining reliance on open windows. Contributingto this trend are changing patterns of occupancy with fewer people at home during the working week,along with developing concerns for personal security.

A hybrid ventilation system is a two-mode system that can automatically switch between passive and mechanical mode at different times of the day or seasons of the year. Some ventilation systems, including the hybrid system, have been set up in a full-scale test house constructed in Tohoku University, Japan to assess their performance. In this paper, the performance of each system is described by giving measurement results.

A lab house constructed in Pittsburgh has been used as a site for the comparative evaluation of several ventilation systems. The house was built to relatively high performance standards and is representative of the type of house that would be a candidate for a purposely designed ventilation system. The systems installed and tested were (1) supply fan, (2) exhaust fan, (3) heat recovery ventilator, (4) balanced flow fan, and (5) open pipe to the RA plenum.

Concentrations of formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were monitored over a 2-year period in the main rooms of four unoccupied test houses and in the outdoor air. During the construction and furnishing of the buildings 30 samples of materials were collected and subsequently tested using environmental test chambers to determine amounts of form aldehyde and other VOCs emitted. Concentrations of VOCs in the building were initially high and declined quickly during the first 6 months after construction.

Three ventilation systems were installed in the EA Technology Ventilation Test House: passive stack ventilation (PSV), mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) and extract fans. Humidifiers were used to simulate occupancy and the performance of the systems monitored over the winter of 1993/94. The aim was to assess the effectiveness of different ventilation systems in controlling indoor humidity at a level that will inhibit the growth of house dust mites.