Until the 1970’s most office buildings in central Europe were not equipped with mechanical cooling (airconditioning). Due to increasing requirements for thermal comfort and warmer summers, nowadays mechanical cooling is often applied to such buildings, ho

In this paper the effectiveness of retrofitting strategies in a sunspace attached to a one-storey building has been investigated. Natural and hybrid ventilation, air-tight glass partitions, awnings and increased thermal mass retrofitting scenarios were implemented, mainly for the Greek climate. Window openings and sensor-controlled fans were used to create a controllable and secure environment. Combined ventilation and thermal simulation were applied, taking into account all the related physical phenomena, such as ventilation, infiltration and solar radiation.

Part of the task in the design of ventilation systems involves selection and specification of system components - components sizes and expected performance characteristics or criteria to achieve specific ventilation objectives for anticipated environmental conditions. Careful selection of these components is required to ensure that they are able to react to changes in environmental conditions.

The paper deals with on-site measurements of energy benefits resulting from exploitation of a solar greenhouse, which was created in the attic under the southward-oriented glazed roof for pre-heating of the ventilating air.This conception of the solar energy utilisation is used in the residential complex of the senior citizen home in Svitavy, 60 km north of Brno. Based on the data collected with the use of an automation monitoring system during the heating season 2001-2002, the main characteristics of the investigated solar greenhouse operation were established.

It is often discussed about the possibilities that more efficient windows offer to reduce the energy loads in residential buildings. Often such results can be achieved reducing the thermal transmittance or optimising the solar gains, not so often the influence of the air permeability is taken into account. This issue is, on the contrary, very important in countries, as Italy, where the age of the building stock is accompanied by the installation of very old windows, characterised by high air leakage, which causes strong heat losses and discomfort phenomena for users.

This paper presents aspects of an office renovation project of the Social Insurance Institute (SII), the largest Social Security Organization in Greece. The project refers to small and larger SII office buildings, including various stages of intervention, ranging from the construction of new buildings, to renovation of existing buildings. Construction and electro-mechanical studies for each building were carried out in order to implement the appropriate and feasible actions.

Sheffield City Council in the UK identified some dwellings of non-standard construction that needed to be refurbished. The refurbishment mainly involved applying insulation and rendering to the exterior surfaces of external walls and replacing old windows. The main aims of the refurbishment for the Council were to improve the condition and appearance of the dwellings and reduce conductive heat loss through the fabric.

A new thermal comfort guideline for moderate environments has been developed: the ATG guideline. The underlying method distinguishes between ‘type Alpha’ versus ‘type Beta’ buildings to provide for different adaptation effects. Type Alpha indicates buildi

This study aims at the development of an optimal design tool using a genetic algorithm (GA) andcomputational fluid dynamics (CFD). To represent a realistic building environment, random variables(fluctuating outdoor conditions), passive control variables (model variables) and active control variables (HVAC system) were set up. A combination of designs are determined based on the relationship between the fluctuating outdoor conditions and the HVAC system in the optimization inquiry.

An increasing impact of ventilation and air-conditioning to the total energy consumption of buildings has drawn attention to natural ventilation and passive cooling. The very common way of natural ventilation in residential buildings is passive stack ventilation. The passive stack ventilation relies on the stack effect created by the temperature difference between air temperature inside and outside a building.