English

This paper presents the results of a field study conducted on 8 houses (out of a set of 31) owned and managed by a French social housing public leasing company. The central objective of our investigation was to evaluate and characterize the envelope leakage of these houses in order to propose and prioritize rehabilitation scenarios. For this, envelope leakage measurements were performed together with infrared thermography measurements.

In France, most of the public project managers have collective dwellings built in the 70’s 80’s with first generation mechanical ventilation systems. These systems are not well perceived by the occupants who find them noisy, uncomfortable in winter and w

Single- and double-section manufactured homes were instrumented in 2001-2003 to measure continuous energy usage and air infiltration with respect to the environmental conditions of a windy cold dry climate. The test site near Arlington, Wyoming, USA is ideal for testing the energy (and structural) performance of manufactured housing due to the naturally occurring high winds (in excess of 35 m/s annually) and temperature extremes (+35 to -35C). Tests included tracer gas monitoring, pressurized leakage tests, and infrared (IR) video scans.

In moderate climates, adventitious ventilation helps in keeping the water vapor balance in a building under control. This does not hold in hot and humid climates, where the outside air is a moisture source. Adventitious ventilation should be avoided in such climates and intended ventilation flows must be dried before entering the space. Anyhow, could adventitious ventilation also generate moisture problems in moderate climates? To get an answer, a reference case was analyzed with the air leakage distributed over facades and roof.

In France, ventilation in new residential buildings must be designed and dimensioned according to the Health regulation (Arrêté du 24 mars 1982) which is basically based on required extract air flow rates. Two points are to be noticed : 1) The extract flo

In order to facilitate nationwide analysis of ventilation and indoor air quality issues in residential buildings, a set of homes has been defined to represent the housing stock of the United States. This so-called 'suite of homes' is based on two residential housing surveys, the U.S. Department of Energy Residential Energy Consumptions Survey (RECS) and the U.S. Census Bureau American Housing Survey (AHS). The RECS dataset includes about 6000 U.S. residences and the AHS covers about 60000, and are both intended to periodically characterize the U.S. housing stock.

The study reviewed each Code/Standard with respect to requirements relating to acommon set of ventilation factors and criteria. The main factors include the following:1. Protection against Depressurization - given the increase in more tightly built homes,how do the differing C/S protect against combustion gas spillage into the dwelling.2. Ventilation Capacity - what are the requirements for total mechanical air changerates, and high and low airflow capacities?3. Contaminant Removal - what exhaust requirements are there for specific rooms inthe dwelling?4.

With the application of part L2 of the Building Regulations in the UK, new buildings with excessive air leakage have no longer been acceptable. All new commercial and public building over 1000 m2 must be tested for airtightness. An air permeability formula measures the envelope of walls, roof and ground floor area. This paper explains why bother about air leakage, and what desginers and constructors must do, and how the testing for airtightness should be carried out. The essential message is : build tight - ventilate right.

In the 1970's variable-air-volume (VAV) revolutionized the use of air-conditioning for commercial buildings. Now a new revolution is underway with the ductless VAV systems.This article describes the two main types of ductless VAV systems (underfloor and overhead) and explore their benefits such as easier design, lower energy consumption, reduced building-faade costs, improved air quality.

Buildings leak water and air : it is normal and impossible to avoid. So the architect and HVAC engineer's goal should be to recognize the concept of building air leakage and account for it in :- quantifying leakage- reducing it if excessive- controlling leakage by managing air pressures with the HVAC system.The aim of this article is to discuss the methods for measuring and expressing leakage and to report the results of a cas study, San Carlos Park elementary school in Fort Myers, Florida.