LBNL

This paper characterizes ventilation in residential suites located in ten buildings in major metropolitan areas of Canada. All buildings were between six and thirty-two stories tall and were built between 1990 and 1995. 1. The key findings from field performance tests of these buildings were: 2. Corridor supply airflows usually did not meet design flows. 3. Makeup air paths for suite exhaust were not properly designed. 4. Suite access door leakage was highly variable and usually did not meet smoke control requirements. 5.

ASHRAE Standard 152P (Method of Test for Determining the Design and Seasonal Efficiencies of Residential Thermal Distribution Systems) includes default values for many of the input parameters required to calculate delivery system efficiencies. These default values have several sources: measured field data in houses, laboratory testing, simple heat transfer analyses, etc. This paper will document and discuss these default values and their sources for forced air systems.

The DeltaQ test has been developed in order to provide better estimates of forced air system air leakage for use in energy efficiency calculations and for compliance testing of duct systems. The DeltaQ test combines a model of the house and duct system with the results of house pressurization tests with the air handler on and off to determine the duct leakage air flows to outside conditioned space at operating conditions.

The role of ventilation in the housing stock is to provide fresh air and to dilute internally-generated pollutants in order to assure adequate indoor air quality. Blower doors are used to measure the air tightness and air leakage of building envelopes. As existing dwellings in the United States are ventilated primarily through leaks in the building shell (i.e., infiltration) rather than by whole-house mechanical ventilation systems, accurate understanding of the uses of blowerdoor data is critical. Blower doors can be used to answer the following questions:.

This document presents the findings of a scoping study commissioned by the Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program of the California Energy Commission to determine what research is necessary to develop new residential ventilation requirements for California. This study is one of three companion efforts needed to complete the job of determining the needs of California, determining residential ventilation requirements, and determining appropriate ventilation technologies to meet these needs and requirements in an energy efficient manner.

The emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from structural insulated panel (SIP) materials were investigated. Specimens of newly produced SIPs and associated panel adhesives were obtained from two relatively large manufacturers. Additionally, specimens of the oriented strand board (OSB) used as the inner and outer sheathing and the extruded polystyrene ore for the SIP were obtained from one manufacturer.

A study to measure indoor concentrations and emission rates of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including formaldehyde, was conducted in a new, unoccupied manufactured house installed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) campus. The house was instrumented to continuously monitor indoor temperature and relative humidity, heating and air conditioning system operation, and outdoor weather. It also was equipped with an automated tracer gas injection and detection system to estimate air change rates every 2 h.

Central tendency and upper limit concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) measured in indoor air are summarized and reviewed. Data were obtained from published cross-sectional studies of residential and office buildings conducted in North America from 1990 through the present. VOC concentrations in existing residences reported in 12 studies comprise the majority of the data set. Central tendency and maximum concentrations are compared between new and existing residences and between existing residences and office buildings.

Can lifestyle-based scenarios provide insight into the nature of energy use in our future buildings? Participants in a design charrette brainstormed ideas about the future of US homes and workplaces. The teams started from several descriptions of daily lifestyles, and developed specific building characteristics as the place settings for these narratives. In addition to the characterization of the physical environment, we also speculate as to the forces that would be influential in making these changes. Further reflection was made on the possible unintended consequences of these changes.

The knowledge of how to ventilate buildings, and how much ventilation is necessary for human health and comfort, has evolved over centuries of trial and error. Humans and animals have developed successful solutions to the problems of regulating temperature and removing air pollutants through the use of ventilation. These solutions include ingenious construction methods, such as engineered passive ventilation (termite mounds and passive stacks), mechanical means (wing-powered, fans), and an evolving effort to identify problems and develop solutions.