Ventilation strategies for good indoor air quality and energy efficiency

The requirements for good indoor air quality and energyefficiency have often been considered to conflict with each other, however, buildings with low energy consumption in Europe seem to have also a lower rate of building related health symptoms. This indicates the importance of proper design, installation and qualified, well trained operational personnel, who understands both the requirements for good indoor air quality and energy efficiency. Several strategies for ventilation are described in the paper by which at the same level of energy consumption, the indoor air quality is improved or at the same level of indoor air quality, the energy consumption is reduced. These include the following: source control and efficient removal of contaminants, proper location of fresh air intakes, cleaning of intake air, efficient air distribution in rooms with improved ventilation efficiency, heat recovery from exhaust air, control of ventilation rates by air quality, correct balancingof air flows, controlling of indoor climate locally,night time ventilative cooling.