Newly constructed residential houses in Japan are better insulated and more airtight than their predecessors to increase energy conservation. Although reduced energy consumption was expected, the energy performance of these buildings has not yet been clarified. Therefore, the indoor thermal environment and energy consumption in 300 well-insulated and airtight houses newly constructed in the Tohoku District, the northern part of Honshu Island, were investigated by a questionnaire survey.
IEA Annex 32 Integral Building Envelope Performance is developing a number of test procedures and measures that can be used to compare and rate the thermal performance of alternative whole-wall construction technologies for residential structures. In this paper, we address sustainability issues and potential impacts building materials may have on the environment. Specifically, we describe the development of a whole-wall sustainability index.
The Elizabeth Fry Building was conceived as a benchmark environmentally benign project, but the design team was allowed no extra capital to achieve this. Could it be done? David Olivier reports
Epidemiological studies have consistently shown an association between particulate air pollution and not only exacerbations of illness in people with respiratory disease but also rises in the numbers of deaths from cardiovascular and respirator y disease among older people. Meta-analyses of these studies indicate that the associations are unlikely to be explained by any confounder, and suggest that they represent cause and effect.
The age of the air in a room is normally determined either from a pulse response or from a step change response (up or down). There are a certain number of problems involved in applying these two theoretical models, especially those associated with the duration of the injection, which must either be infinitely short or infinitely long. A hybrid method that consists of injecting a known quantity of tracer for a given time offers the advantages of both methods.
Comfort evaluations cover air quality, thermal, visual and acoustic comfort. Today, only few computer programs allow for the integrated evaluation of several or all relevant parameters. Heat transport, ventilation as well as lighting in a room are influenced by each other. Therefore they should be integrally modelled. As a part of the IEA-ECBCS Annex 23 'Multizone Airflow Modelling', such a coupling has been realised by integrating the air flow and contaminant transport simulation code of CoMIS into the building and systems simulation code TRNSYS.
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