Richard Tully gives practical advice on ventilation requirements for underground car parks, emphasizing the need to remove fumes quickly from exit ramps where vehicles emit up to half as much carbon monoxide again as on the level.
Ventilation air distribution problems involving system design, installation, operation and maintenance are often suspected of causing air quality problems that plague many modern sealed office buildings, such air quality problems have resulted in occupants suffering symptoms of discomfort and ill health. Three case studies are described in which tests of ventilation performance appear to relate poor air quality to air distribution and ventilation. In all cases, ventilation system retrofits were designed to improve indoor environmental conditions.
New research shows that replacing low efficiency window air conditioners with high-efficiency units can produce measurable savings and can be cost-effective in homes with high air conditioning electricity consumption.
Approximately 35% of US single-family houses contain forced-air heating and cooling ducts that pass through unconditioned spaces. These duct systems have been shown to have a potentially large. Influence on energy use and ventilation rates. To investigate the parameters affecting the performance of these systems, a 31-house field study of distribution-system performance based on diagnostic measurements was performed in California, and an integrated airflow and thermal simulation tool was developed.
Computer-based control systems have been widely used for controlling air-conditioning systems in commercial buildings. Computer-based control technology can increase control accuracy and can implement various sophisticated control strategies so that building energy consumption can be reduced. The problem is not how to implement a control strategy, but which control strategy should be used to control air-conditioning systems in commercial buildings.
One of the most important projects of the 1990s has just been completed - the naturally ventilated School of Engineering at De Montfort University in Leicester. Roderic Bunn reveals how it could influence a new breed of environmentally sensitive buildings.
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