This paper presents the results of a field study conducted on 8 houses (out of a set of 31) owned and managed by a French social housing public leasing company. The central objective of our investigation was to evaluate and characterize the envelope leakage of these houses in order to propose and prioritize rehabilitation scenarios. For this, envelope leakage measurements were performed together with infrared thermography measurements.

The most efficient ventilation system would only operate on demand, when ventilation was "needed". Running the ventilation system all the time at a low flow rate, a rate sufficient to match the ASHRAE recommended 0.35 ACH is a crude control approach to an optimum system. Conditions in a house are not constant. On average, a constant flow rate ventilation system will work reasonably well and certainly is simple, but there are more energy efficient approaches, and users tend to shut down systems that run constantly.

Single- and double-section manufactured homes were instrumented in 2001-2003 to measure continuous energy usage and air infiltration with respect to the environmental conditions of a windy cold dry climate. The test site near Arlington, Wyoming, USA is ideal for testing the energy (and structural) performance of manufactured housing due to the naturally occurring high winds (in excess of 35 m/s annually) and temperature extremes (+35 to -35C). Tests included tracer gas monitoring, pressurized leakage tests, and infrared (IR) video scans.

In moderate climates, adventitious ventilation helps in keeping the water vapor balance in a building under control. This does not hold in hot and humid climates, where the outside air is a moisture source. Adventitious ventilation should be avoided in such climates and intended ventilation flows must be dried before entering the space. Anyhow, could adventitious ventilation also generate moisture problems in moderate climates? To get an answer, a reference case was analyzed with the air leakage distributed over facades and roof.

In France, most of the public project managers have collective dwellings built in the 70’s 80’s with first generation mechanical ventilation systems. These systems are not well perceived by the occupants who find them noisy, uncomfortable in winter and w

Carbon-dioxide (CO2) based demand controlled ventilation (DCV) offers the potential for moreenergy efficient building ventilation compared with constant ventilation rates based on designoccupancy. A number of questions related to CO2 DCV exist regarding energy benefits, optimalcontrol strategies, and indoor air quality impacts for contaminants with source strengths that areindependent of the number of occupants. In order to obtain insight into these issues, a simulationstudy was performed in six commercial and institutional building spaces.

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

A concept is investigated for the energy efficient control of residential mechanical ventilation in response to outdoor air temperature and the corresponding stack-driven infiltration. The control concept takes advantage of the natural air leakage characteristics of a house and the ability of temperature-driven stack infiltration to provide ventilation air to the house. As the outdoor to indoor temperature difference increases and natural infiltration increases, the fan operation is reduced, thereby minimizing over-ventilation.

The study reviewed each Code/Standard with respect to requirements relating to acommon set of ventilation factors and criteria. The main factors include the following:1. Protection against Depressurization - given the increase in more tightly built homes,how do the differing C/S protect against combustion gas spillage into the dwelling.2. Ventilation Capacity - what are the requirements for total mechanical air changerates, and high and low airflow capacities?3. Contaminant Removal - what exhaust requirements are there for specific rooms inthe dwelling?4.

Research partners of 10 different countries are developing a computer tool in the framework of IEA ECBCS Annex 36, which helps decision makers to include the most energy-efficient and economic technical retrofit measures into the retrofit of their educational buildings.