EU

Most of the degradation of works of art in historic buildings is caused by unfavourable indoor climate conditions. The most important works of art receive invasive conservation treatment, called direct action, but this treatment is very expensive. To avoid invasive conservation treatments and ensure that works of art are protected for now and for the future, indirect action to mitigate the deterioration process is necessary. This holds that exposure to unfavourable indoor climate conditions should be avoided, as far as is compatible with its social use.

In order to provide patients with a high quality indoor environment and ensure a pleasant working place for medical care personnel, thermal environment and indoor air quality are regarded as two of the most important requirements. 

Norwegian building regulations refer to the NS-EN 15251 and the NS-ISO 7730 to define indoor climate criteria in new buildings. For example, the standards prescribe a temperature band of 20-26°C for a normal office situation. Any HVAC engineer or facility manager would however willingly state that office buildings in practice are run with a much smaller temperature dead-band, and that building occupants would complain if temperatures were as high as 26°C.

The ClimACT project has been developed under the priority axis “Low Carbon Economy” of the Interreg SUDOE program. It aims to support the transition to a low carbon economy in schools. Environmental audits addressing energy and water consumptions, waste management, travels to school, procurements and green spaces have been carried out in 38 pilots schools of Portugal, Spain, France and Gibraltar. Indoor air quality and ventilation measurements were also achieved. The concentrations of 9 aldehydes and 10 selected VOCs were measured from passive sampling in two classrooms of each school.

Using natural ventilation is effective to save energy, and it is essential for energy conservation and decreasing running cost [1]. However, in office buildings located in where mid- to -high-rise buildings are densely distributed, the way of ensuring stable ventilation is very important matter of natural ventilation system. In this research, we focus on the ventilation performance of an office building where the natural ventilation system is introduced by utilizing the buoyancy force through a ventilation shaft.

Because of the need of energy conservation and Business Continuity Planning (BCP), natural ventilation system, which basically does not use non-renewable energy, is attracting academic/practical attention. However, it is difficult to predict the natural ventilation performance even after completion of the building, because it is easily affected by unstable conditions, such as outdoor temperature and wind. The designing and controlling method of natural ventilation system is not yet sufficiently established.

Drøbak Montessori lower secondary school is Norway’s first plus-energy school and also the first school built after the Norwegian Powerhouse-concept, www.powerhouse.no. This concept implies that the building shall produce more renewable energy during the lifetime of the building, than used for materials, production, operation, renovation and demolition.  

Natural and Hybrid ventilation systems, by using exclusively or partially natural driving forces, help to reconcile building energy sobriety and good Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). However, in France, Building Regulations restrict the use of natural ventilation by imposing minimum airflows in buildings. Natural ventilation, whose driving forces are atmospheric conditions, has an efficiency depending on the climatic region.

Indoor environment and indoor air quality (IAQ) are considered as subjects of major concern: as we build more and more energy efficient and airtight buildings, the conflicting issues of energy efficiency, adverse health effects and discomfort become more relevant. Significant rates of malfunctions of ventilation systems are still observed among new constructions.

In France, the new Promevent protocol for ventilation system inspection in new dwellings has been published in 2017. It proposes a complete method for checks and measurements in order to uniform and improve the quality of inspection performed by measurers. The Promevent protocol proposes a methodology for pre-check, functional checks, functional measurements at air terminal devices and ductwork airtightness measurement. It also includes requirements for sampling and gives guidelines for the report.