Energy and comfort aspects of infiltration at closing elements of buildings

Nowadays, due to the energy saving purposes inthe building sector, at new buildings and atrefurbishments, modem closing elements arebuilt-in, with very good thermal insulation andair tightness properties. The frame of theseelements may be from wood, plastic or metal.Each of them has advantages and disadvantages,but during the exploitation the initial value ofair tightness may become higher. Thisphenomenon may appear because of the initialtensions in the materials or due to the failures inthe built-in procedure. The infiltrated air-flowthrough the frame gaps may be significant. Ofcourse there are lots of factors which have aninfluence on the infiltration beside the gapssurface such as wind pressure, extractor fans etc.Having infiltration the energy properties of thebuilding are changed considerably and,depending on the rooms' position in dwelling,comfort problems may appear. In this paper theinfiltration is analysed from energy and thermalcomfort point of view. Calculus has shown thathaving lower air tightness the energyconsumption for heating up the infiltrated freshair flow can be 3-5 times higher than the designvalue. If the infiltrated air is not heated up to theinternal set point value the internal temperaturecan decreased significantly.