English

During 1997, an energy efficient building was designed, featuring energy conservation, passive solar heating, natural cooling and daylighting strategies. It is located in the province of La Pampa, in the temperate semi-arid region of central Argentina. The resulting compact design houses takes 634m2 of useful floor area with main spaces. An audience class, two laboratories, four research offices, one simple class and services make up the building. Solar windows are provided for all main spaces, except in the audience class. Clestories contribute to add solar gains and natural lighting.

In summer, it is possible to achieve a satisfactory comfort in residential buildings with purely passive means as thermal inertia, possibility of cross ventilation and solar protection of the external envelope. These parameters have to be taken into account at the earliest stages of building design.

This paper examines historical data on Government expenditure on grants for home energy efficiency improvements, and the effect that this had on the uptake of insulation measures. The analysis focuses on loft insulation, this being the main measure that has been targeted by grant schemes. The paper shows that variations in loft insulation uptake between 197 4 and 1996 were closely tied to changes to grant schemes. Furthermore, there is a clear correlation between the uptake rate achieved and the level of funding provided by the Government.

As everybody knows, today the air quality of an indoor environment may have several effects on our health; the beginning of serious breathing pathologies and of some forms of cancer, are with no doubt due to the presence of polluting and extremely noxious agents in the places we most frequently use. That's the reason why it is very important that indoor rooms are correctly aired also in our homes where, due to several incidental factors, the healthiness of the environment is still guaranteed by the mere and discretionary operation of users of opening the windows.

Smoking restrictions in the workplace and increased health consciousness at home have seen a sizable reduction in the number of spaces where smoking is permissible. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of ventilation in public houses, one of the few remaining public spaces where smoking is still socially acceptable. Little is known about the situation with shared occupancies, where relatively large areas are intended to accommodate both smokers and non-smokers.

The ventilation system of a 60 seats conference room was retrofitted to improve indoor air quality. The old, mixing type installation was replaced by a displacement ventilation system. However, the building layout did not allow an optimum location of air inlets and outlets. It was therefore interesting to measure the actual performance of the new system. Using tracer gas techniques, the age of air was mapped within the room, and the ventilation effectiveness was measured in various configurations. The actual air flow rates were also measured in the ventilation system.

The present paper deals with one of the most important mechanisms of inter-zone mass and energy transfer, namely the buoyancy-driven flows through stairwells that connect the floors of buildings. To further investigate these phenomena, experimental as well as theoretical studies have been carried out. A series of experiments have been performed in order to study the airflow through a typical stairwell that connects the two individual zones of a two-storey house. Airflow rates between the two zones were measured using a single tracer gas decay technique.

The Netherlands Agency for Energy and the Environment(NOVEM) is conducting a program for the implementation of Low Temperature Heating (LTH) systems in buildings. The primary goal is to enable the use of Low Talued Energy as a heating source. Major savings in enery consumption can be realised by fully utilising the potential of Low Valued Enery. Besides the argument of savings in energy supply, there are additiond benefits in the fields of. Indoor Air Quality (particles, mites, lower air temperature, annoyance and dust);.

Air conditioning is widely used in the office building sector in the French Mediterranean region. Though often a «sine qua non» for renting office space, there is however a widespread feeling that operating and maintaining air-conditioning systems can be troublesome (unreliability, regulation and maintenance difficulties, non uniform comfort conditions, high prices are frequently lamented).