Ventilation Strategy for Civil Buildings in Response to Stricter Standards of Energy Conservation and Indoor-Air-Quality Issue in China

China has been undergoing fast urbanization during the last three decades. Air tightness designequipped with air-conditioning units are currently popular in commercial rather than residential buildings to meet the policy needs of energy conservation. Meanwhile, indoor chemical contamination mainly derived from excessive interior decorating activities causes broad attentions to indoor heath concerns. This paper reviews the development of building ventilation and energy-conservation as well as indoor-air-quality (IAQ) related standards in China. Comparative analysis to related international standards and those in developed countries indicated that both academic research and practice for building ventilation is still relative weakness in Chinese HVAC field. China promulgated a series of IAQ-related standards since 2001, in which physical indices related to building ventilation and energy such as fresh air supply rate, temperature and relative humidity are also included. In summary, ventilation strategies in civil buildings should be renovated to meet those stricter standards. This review also indicated that demand controlled ventilation basing on IAQ, integrated with indoor air pollution warning system using carbon dioxide and total volatile organic compounds as dual indicators, supplies a new option to enhance building energy efficiency and to guarantee good IAQ.