Measured Air Distribution Effectiveness for Residential Mechanical Ventilation Systems

The purpose of ventilation is dilute or remove indoor contaminants that an occupant is exposed to. In a multi-zone environment such as a house, there will be different dilution rates and different source strengths in every zone. Most US homes have central HVAC systems, which tend to mix the air thus the indoor conditions between zones. Different types of ventilation systems will provide different amounts of exposure depending on the effectiveness of their air distribution systems and the location of sources and occupants. This paper will report on field measurements using a unique multi-tracer measurement system that has the capacity to measure not only the flow of outdoor air to each zone, but zone-to-zone transport. The paper will derive seven different metrics for the evaluation of air distribution. Measured data from two homes with different levels of natural infiltration will be used to evaluate these metrics for three different ASHRAE Standard 62.2 compliant ventilation systems. Such information can be used to determine the effectiveness of different systems so that appropriate adjustments can be made in residential ventilation standards such as ASHRAE Standard 62.2

Multizone Age-of-Air Analysis

Age of air is a technique for evaluating ventilation that has been actively used for over 20 years. Age of air quantifies the time it takes for outdoor air to reach a particular location or zone within then indoor environment. Age of air is often also used to quantify the ventilation effectiveness with respect to indoor air quality. In a purely single zone situation this use of age of air is straightforward, but application of age of air techniques in the general multizone environment has not been fully developed. This article looks at expanding those single-zone techniques to the more complicated environment of multizone buildings and in doing so develops further the general concept of age of air. The results of this analysis shows that the nominal age of air as often used cannot be directly used for determining ventilation effectiveness unless specific assumptions are made regarding source distributions

On The Valuation of Infiltration towards Meeting Residential Ventilation Needs

The purpose of ventilation is dilute or remove indoor contaminants that an occupant is exposed to. It can be provided by mechanical or natural means. In most homes, especially existing homes, infiltration provides the dominant fraction of the ventilation. As we seek to provide acceptable indoor air quality at minimum energy cost, it is important to neither over-ventilate nor under-ventilate. Thus, it becomes critically important to correctly evaluate the contribution infiltration makes to both energy consumption and equivalent ventilation. ASHRAE Standards including standards 62, 119, and 136 have all considered the contribution of infiltration in various ways, using methods and data from 20 years ago

Heat recovery in building envelopes

ABSTRACT Infiltration has traditionally been assumed to contribute to the energy load of a building by an amount equal to the product of the infiltration flow rate and the enthalpy difference between inside and outside. Application of such a simple formula may produce an unreasonably high contribution because of heat recovery within the building envelope. Previous laboratory and simulation research has indicated that such heat transfer between the infiltrating air and walls may be substantial. In this study, Computational Fluid Dynamics was used to simulate sensible heat transfer in typical envelope constructions. The results show that the traditional method may over-predict the infiltration energy load by up to 95 percent at low leakage rates. A simplified physical model has been developed and used to predict the infiltration heat recovery based on the Peclet number of the flow and the fraction of the building envelope active in infiltration heat recovery

Air Leakage of U.S. Homes: Model Prediction

Air tightness is an important property of building envelopes. It is a key factor in determining infiltration and related wall-performance properties such as indoor air quality, maintainability and moisture balance. Air leakage in U.S. houses consumes roughly 1/3 of the HVAC energy but provides most of the ventilation used to control IAQ. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been gathering residential air leakage data from many sources and now has a database of more than 100,000 raw measurements. This paper uses a model developed from that database in conjunction with US Census Bureau data for estimating air leakage as a function of location throughout the US

Why We Ventilate Our Houses -An Historical Look

ABSTRACT The knowledge of how to ventilate buildings, and how much ventilation is necessary for human health and comfort, has evolved over centuries of trial and error. Humans and animals have developed successful solutions to the problems of regulating temperature and removing air pollutants through the use of ventilation. These solutions include ingenious construction methods, such as engineered passive ventilation (termite mounds and passive stacks), mechanical means (wing-powered, fans), and an evolving effort to identify problems and develop solutions. Ventilation can do more than help prevent building occupants from getting sick; it can provide an improved indoor environment. Codes and standards provide minimum legal requirements for ventilation, but the need for ventilation goes beyond code minima. In this paper we will look at indoor air pollutant sources over time, the evolution of ventilation strategies, current residential ventilation codes and standards (e.g., recently approved ASHRAE Standard 62.2), and briefly discuss ways in which we can go beyond the standards to optimize residential ventilation, reduce indoor air quality problems, and provide corresponding social and economic benefit

Meeting residential ventilation standards through dynamic control of ventilation systems

Existing ventilation standards, including American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 62.2, specify continuous operation of a defined mechanical ventilation system to provide minimum ventilation, with time-based intermittent operation as an option. This requirement ignores several factors and concerns including: other equipment such as household exhaust fans that might incidentally provide ventilation, negative impacts of ventilation when outdoor pollutant levels are high, the importance of minimizing energy use particularly during times of peak electricity demand, and how the energy used to condition air as part of ventilation system operation changes with outdoor conditions. Dynamic control of ventilation systems can provide ventilation equivalent to or better than what is required by standards while minimizing energy costs and can also add value by shifting load during peak times and reducing intake of outdoor air contaminants. This article describes the logic that enables dynamic control of whole-house ventilation systems to meet the intent of ventilation standards and demonstrates the dynamic ventilation system control concept through simulations and field tests of the Residential Integrated Ventilation-Energy Controller (RIVEC)

Harm from Residential Indoor Air Contaminants

This study presents a health-centered approach to quantify and compare the chronic harm caused by indoor air contaminants using disability-adjusted life-year (DALY). The aim is to understand the chronic harm caused by airborne contaminants in dwellings and identify the most harmful. Epidemiological and toxicological evidence of population morbidity and mortality is used to determine harm intensities, a metric of chronic harm per unit of contaminant concentration. Uncertainty is evaluated in the concentrations of 45 indoor air contaminants commonly found in dwellings. Chronic harm is estimated from the harm intensities and the concentrations. The most harmful contaminants in dwellings are PM2.5, PM10–2.5, NO2, formaldehyde, radon, and O3, accounting for over 99% of total median harm of 2200 DALYs/105 person/year. The chronic harm caused by all airborne contaminants in dwellings accounts for 7% of the total global burden from all diseases