Hybrid ventilation tests in houses following the Spanish Technical Building Code (CTE)

The present communication forms part of the conclusions to emerge from the research project-Development of a methodology for the estimation of ventilation efficiency in residentialhouses- financed jointly by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and by ERDF, andcarried out from 2003 to early 2006.The aim is to present the results obtained for ventilation efficiency in systems of hybrid ventilation for houses, which is about to be implemented in Spanish legislation. We will provide a summary of studies conducted on air extraction rooms, such as bathrooms or kitchens, and transit or air circulation areas such as corridors, halls, or distributors. For this purpose, representative typologies have been chosen, and a twin study has been performed using an experimental model in a laboratory with photoacoustic techniques of tracer gases, and a numerical model with CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) software techniques.Numerical procedure validation has enabled us to emulate a variety of common situations different to the tested model and obtain conclusions on the architectural design of houses, thus allowing us to improve indoor air quality (IAQ).