The current development in building energy efficiency towards nZEB buildings represents a number of new challenges to design and construction. One of these major challenges is the increased need for cooling in these highly insulated and airtight buildings, which is not only present in the summer period but also in the shoulder seasons and in offices even in midwinter. Resilient ventilative cooling can be an energy efficient solution to address this cooling challenge in buildings.
Mandatory or voluntary building airtightness testing has come gradually into force in many European countries mostly because of the increasing weight of building leakage energy impact on the overall energy performance of low-energy buildings. Therefore, airtightness levels of new buildings have significantly improved in the last decade, but a lot of questions remain regarding the durability of airtightness products.
Submitted by Maria.Kapsalaki on Mon, 12/21/2020 - 11:56
Air infiltration in buildings has multiple consequences on energy use and indoor environmental quality. Therefore, in the last 10 years many countries have introduced requirements for building airtightness in their EP-regulation. Those requirements often prescribe that a test is performed by a qualified tester and that every test performed is recorded in a database. Hundreds of thousands of data are now available in Europe.
Submitted by Maria.Kapsalaki on Tue, 12/15/2020 - 18:40
Various studies have shown that ductwork leakage has a major impact on energy use (i.e. increased fan energy use, heating & cooling losses etc.). However, in most European countries, it is not common to perform ductwork airtightness tests, which is probably due to the lack of awareness on the consequences of ductwork leakage. As follows, ductwork airtightness is not properly taken into account in most Energy Performance Regulations and Calculations.
While building airtightness is a key concern in Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings in most European climates, there exists already a wide range of commercially-available products specifically designed to minimise leakage in building envelopes.
The objective of this webinar was to give information on the performance and properties of these products based on research including laboratory and field tests. The speakers provided information on standards already published and under development on this subject.
Over the past few years, there has been an increasing number of airtightness tests performed in Europe either for specific high performance buildings programmes or for a wide range of buildings in regulatory contexts. This has led to the development of competent tester schemes to contain potential legal and competition issues.
The objective of this webinar was to give information on the status and trends in airtightness testing in Germany, the Czech Republic and France including the details and feedback on competent tester schemes.
Setting sustainable urban development goals and developing energy efficient solutions for buildings are crucial elements of climate action. Urban living is introducing new challenges both for architectural design and technical solutions. Ventilation systems have an important impact both on energy use as well as indoor climate and health in buildings. So, how can we develop good home ventilation solutions fit for urban living?
Progressing the scientific basis of indoor environmental quality is essential to understand which aspects can be better optimised to substantially reduce energy use in buildings. In recent years, IEA Energy in Buildings and Communities (EBC) international research projects have been investigating for this purpose both indoor air quality and thermal comfort. The embodied impacts of buildings and their services systems are also a focus of EBC's research.
Setting sustainable urban development goals and developing energy efficient solutions for buildings are crucial elements of climate action. Urban living is introducing new challenges both for architectural design and technical solutions. Ventilation systems have an important impact both on energy use as well as indoor climate and health in buildings. So, how can we develop good home ventilation solutions fit for urban living?
Setting sustainable urban development goals and developing energy efficient solutions for buildings are crucial elements of climate action. Urban living is introducing new challenges both for architectural design and technical solutions. Ventilation systems have an important impact both on energy use as well as indoor climate and health in buildings. So, how can we develop good home ventilation solutions fit for urban living?
