D'Ottavio T W, Dietz R N.
Year:
1985
Bibliographic info:
Paper to be presented at the ASHRAE Symposium on Multi-Cell Infiltration, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 1985. Upton, New York, USA: Brookhaven National Laboratory, 1985. BNL 36186. 34p. 8 figs, 3 tabs, 8 refs.

Errors resulting from treating a house as an enclosure surrounding a single, well-mixed volume of air are explored in detail for a ranch house with abasement. A fairly typical ventilation pattern is assumed and three quantities, the air exchange rate, the indoor pollutant concentration from a given emission, and the energy required to heat infiltrating air, are calculated and compared using both the one and two zone models for this house.In general, the errors were around 10-20% if the basement was included in the one zone models and 30-40% if the basement was neglected. Other factors that affect the magnitude of these errors include the length of a pollutant release, the outdoor temperature and the air exchange rate measurement protocol as well as the particular ventilation characteristics of the house.