A Test House at EA Technology, Capenhurst, has been refurbished to provide a ventilation test facility. The house was required to meet the following requirements: - A high standard of air tightness - Insulation to current Building Regulations or better - Incorporation of several ventilation systems - Comprehensive instrumentation The original timber frame front and rear facades of the house were replaced with brick and block construction. All internal floors, ceilings and partitions were replaced and the external walls replastered.
The Building Research Establishment has set up various passive stack ventilation systems (PSV) in a test house in order to assess their performance. The test house used was a two storey, end terrace dwelling on the BRE site at Garston. A PSV was installed in the kitchen of the test dwelling. The duct material, diameter and configuration were varied to determine any differences that they would make to the air flow rates obtained in the duct. In addition, three different ridge terminals were tested and three ceiling inlets.
Once the flow-pressurization characteristics of a building are known, the largest uncertainty in predicting air infiltration is the effect of wind shelter from nearby buildings. To study the effects of wind sheltering a large data set of hourly air infiltration and meteorological measurements were made for a row of test houses located on an exposed rural site. This configuration produces strong variations in wind shelter as the wind direction shifts from along the row to perpendicular to it.
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