Webinars

Building airtightness tests are now required or promoted in more and more countries, in particular for residential buildings. However, airtightness tests in high-rise buildings remain particularly challenging and uncommon. In addition to the difficulties of pressurizing any large-volume building and the wind issue that can be more pronounced at height, the stack effect can be particularly problematic.

A smart ventilation system is able to continually adjust itself to provide the desired IAQ while minimizing energy use, utility bills, thermal discomfort and noise. A smart ventilation system is also responsive to e.g., occupancy, outdoor conditions, and can provide information about e.g., IAQ, energy use and the need for maintenance or repair.

A pressurization test with a blower door fan is the most widely accepted and used method to evaluate the airtightness of a building, but it presents some drawbacks. Alternative methodologies have been, or are being, developed and three of them were presented in this webinar:

Significant discrepancies have been observed among European countries, regarding the building and ductwork airtightness trends, attributed to differences between national policies, building practices and climate conditions. In Spain and Latvia, minimum requirements for building airtightness are included in national regulations and Energy Performance calculations, but without a mandatory justification by testing and therefore few new buildings are controlled.

Significant discrepancies have been observed among European countries, regarding the building and ductwork airtightness trends, attributed to differences between national policies, building practices and climate conditions. Minimum requirements for building airtightness are sometimes included in national Energy Performance regulations with a mandatory justification required by testing or applying a certified approach like in France, or with high default values making airtightness testing implicitly mandatory like in Belgium.

Our bodies need good rest and sleep as part of regular recuperation to enable us to perform our normal activities in life.  Sleep is an integral part of human life and the importance and significance of good bedroom IAQ, indoor air pollution, ventilation as well as bedroom thermal environment during sleep cannot be emphasized more. Yet, there is a paucity of information in the scientific literature in this regard, especially pertaining to IAQ in sleeping environments and sleep quality.  Are our bedrooms adequately ventilated at all times to maintain good IAQ?

Ventilation represents a very high part of the building’s energy load. Increased envelope protection combined with the significant increase of the ambient temperature, turn ventilation into one of the major energy consuming uses requiring the development and use of innovative and efficient new technologies to minimise the ventilation energy load. In parallel, the increase of the ambient temperature induced by global and local overheating increases the cooling load of buildings and decreases the cooling potential of ventilation

Personal Environmental Control System (PECS) with the functions of heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and acoustic has advantages of controlling the localized environment at occupant’s workstation by their preference instead of conditioning an entire room. This improves personal comfort, health and energy efficiency of the entire heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system substantially. Personalized ventilation will also protect against cross contaminations, which are critical in open plan offices and workplaces with close distance.

Worldwide, there is an increasing number of publications related to air cleaning and there is an increasing sale of gas phase air cleaning products. This puts a demand for verifying the influence of using air cleaning on indoor air quality, comfort, well-being and health. It is thus important to learn whether air cleaning can supplement ventilation with respect to improving air quality i.e. whether it can partly substitute the ventilation rates required by standards. There is also a need to evaluate the energy impact of using air cleaning as supplement to ventilation.