building regulations

It is estimated that people spend 60-90% of their life in indoor environments. Therefore, it is obvious that indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort are of highly importance for the health and wellbeing of the population. Consequently, buildings should be designed to ensure proper indoor conditions. Furthermore, the need to mitigate climate change and to reduce energy import dependency, provides additional challenges for the design and operation of buildings and requires a dramatic reduction in their energy consumption and emissions.

Choosing the right baseline level of ventilation has a big impact in the calculated energy needs of buildings.

The study is placed within the context of local building regulations in India. Building regulations, for fenestration in general and window openings in particular, are, to a large extent, ambiguous in nature. In the context of India, observations show that the regulations specify window size for the sole purpose of ventilation whereas windows are major roleplayers in the thermal and daylighting performance of buildings.

In support of the movement towards the integration of modelling in the design process, a unified simulation-based compliance methodology for the energy performance of buildings was introduced in the UK Building and Approved Inspectors (Amendment) Regulations 2006 (England and Wales). As part of a larger project with the overall aim of presenting an analytical study of the process of introducing of this legislative approach to the UK construction industry, the paper reports on the status of the establishment of a simulation capability to support its use.

The UK Government strategy for all new homes to be built to zero carbon standards by 2016 is based upon a “fabric first” approach to design. This means prioritising energy efficiency improvements to the building envelope through: increasing overall levels of insulation; reducing thermal bridging; and making buildings more airtight. However, recent research has raised concerns about the standards that are actually achieved in the construction of new housing.

The EPBD (EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive) Concerted Action is a cooperative effort from all 27 EU Member States (MS), plus Norway and Croatia, together with the European Commission. It is running since 2004, under the Intelligent Energy programme since 2007. It aims at providing support to MS in their effort to transpose and then implement the EPBD, identifying the best solutions and practices that MS can then adopt and thus move towards harmonization throughout the EU.

This paper describes a series of field measurements investigating the ventilation rates and indoor airquality in four newly built secondary schools in England. In these schools each with a differentventilation strategy - measurements and calculations were performed to determine the variation inventilation rates during the school day. All the schools were assessed for compliance with the recentlyadopted Building Bulletin 101 which defines the set of criteria in relation to the ventilation rates andindoor air quality in new school buildings.

As in other parts of the world, building legislation has been used since the 1980s by governmentbodies in the Arabian Gulf countries. These countries sought to reduce rising electrical consumption(6.7% per year) during the construction boom following the discovery of oil. Generally, however, theseearly regulations are limited in scope and have been implemented in a piecemeal manner across thedifferent countries.

A manufactured home has been installed on the NIST campus for ventilation, energy andindoor air quality studies. The primary purposes of the facility are to study mechanicalventilation requirements for U.S. manufactured homes and to investigate the systems used tomeet these requirements. In addition, the building will be used to investigate moisture issues,indoor air quality impacts of combustion appliances, and VOC emissions from buildingmaterials and furnishings. The first phase of this multiyear effort has focused on airtightness,system airflows and air change rates.

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