An overview of residential ventilation activities in the Building America program (phase I)
Barley, D.
2001 Prepared under Task No. BET1.8004, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Barley, D., (2001), "An overview of residential ventilation activities in the Building America program (phase I)", Prepared under Task No. BET1.8004, National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Abstract:
In occupied buildings, ventilation (either natural or mechanical) is necessary to maintain acceptable indoor air quality (IAQ). At the same time, when buildings are heated or cooled, ventilation often constitutes a relatively large component of the heating or cooling load. In the past few decades, concerted efforts have been made to conserve energy by making buildings "tighter" (i.e., less prone to air leakage). Unfortunately, the success of that effort has exacerbated concerns about health, comfort, and other problems related to poor IAQ. The basic goal of the Building America program (Building America, 2000) is to foster the widespread construction of homes that are energy efficient, healthy, comfortable, and affordable. Thus, all of the Building America teams are making efforts to improve upon current practices by designing and implementing ventilation systems that provide adequate IAQ as energy efficiently and economically as possible. Numerous authors have discussed specific concerns and strategies toward this end (see References in Section VII). A brief overview of this material follows before the approaches of the variou s teams are described.
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