Download or read book Air Tightness of US Homes written by Max H. Sherman and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 that database to develop a model for estimating air leakage as a function of climate, building age, floor area, building height, floor type, energy-efficiency and low-income designations. The model developed can be used to estimate the leakage distribution of populations of houses.
Download or read book Air Tightness of New Houses in the U S written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most dwellings in the United States are ventilated primarily through leaks in the building shell (i.e., infiltration) rather than by whole-house mechanical ventilation systems. Consequently, quantification of envelope air-tightness is critical to determining how much energy is being lost through infiltration and how much infiltration is contributing toward ventilation requirements. Envelope air tightness and air leakage can be determined from fan pressurization measurements with a blower door. Tens of thousands of unique fan pressurization measurements have been made of U.S. dwellings over the past decades. LBNL has collected the available data on residential infiltration into its Residential Diagnostics Database, with support from the U.S. Department of Energy. This report documents the envelope air leakage section of the LBNL database, with particular emphasis on new construction. The work reported here is an update of similar efforts carried out a decade ago, which used available data largely focused on the housing stock, rather than on new construction. The current effort emphasizes shell tightness measurements made on houses soon after they are built. These newer data come from over two dozen datasets, including over 73,000 measurements spread throughout a majority of the U.S. Roughly one-third of the measurements are for houses identified as energy-efficient through participation in a government or utility program. As a result, the characteristics reported here provide a quantitative estimate of the impact that energy-efficiency programs have on envelope tightness in the US, as well as on trends in construction.
Download or read book Air Leakage of U S Homes written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Pretty Good House written by Michael Maines and published by Taunton Press. This book was released on 2022-05-24 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pretty Good House provides a framework and set of guidelines for building or renovating a high-performance home that focus on its inhabitants and the environment--but keeps in mind that few people have pockets deep enough to achieve a "perfect" solution. The essential idea is for homeowners to work within their financial and practical constraints both to meet their own needs and do as much for the planet as possible. A Pretty Good House is: * A house that's as small as possible * Simple and durable, but also well designed * Insulated and air-sealed * Above all, it is affordable, healthy, responsible, and resilient.
Download or read book Building America Case Study written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 2 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This research project focused on evaluation of air transfer between the garage and living space in a single-family detached home constructed by a production homebuilder in compliance with the 2009 International Residential Code and the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code. The project gathered important information about the performance of whole-building ventilation systems and garage ventilation systems as they relate to minimizing flow of contaminated air from garage to living space. A series of 25 multi-point fan pressurization tests and additional zone pressure diagnostic testing characterized the garage and house air leakage, the garage-to-house air leakage, and garage and house pressure relationships to each other and to outdoors using automated fan pressurization and pressure monitoring techniques. While the relative characteristics of this house may not represent the entire population of new construction configurations and air tightness levels (house and garage) throughout the country, the technical approach was conservative and should reasonably extend the usefulness of the results to a large spectrum of house configurations from this set of parametric tests in this one house. Based on the results of this testing, the two-step garage-to-house air leakage test protocol described above is recommended where whole-house exhaust ventilation is employed. For houses employing whole-house supply ventilation (positive pressure) or balanced ventilation (same pressure effect as the Baseline condition), adherence to the EPA Indoor airPLUS house-to-garage air sealing requirements should be sufficient to expect little to no garage-to-house air transfer.
Download or read book Building America Case Study written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 2 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this second study on solutions to ice dams in 1-1/2 story homes, five test homes located in both cold and very cold climates were analyzed for air leakage reduction rates following modifications by independent contractors on owner-occupied homes. The reason for choosing this house type was they are very common in our area and very difficult to air seal and insulate effectively. Two projects followed a roof-only Exterior Thermal Moisture Management System (ETMMS) process. One project used an interior-only approach to roof air sealing and insulation. The remaining two projects used a deep energy retrofit approach for whole house (foundation wall, above grade wall, roof) air leakage and heat loss reduction. All were asked to provide information regarding project goals, process, and pre and post-blower door test results. Additional air leakage reduction data was provided by several NorthernSTAR Building America industry partners for interior-applied, roof-only modifications on 1-1/2 story homes. The data represents homes in the general market as well as homes that were part of the state of Minnesota weatherization program. A goal was to compare exterior air sealing methods with interior approaches. This pool of data enabled us to compare air tightness data from over 220 homes using similar air seal methods.
Download or read book Airtightness Results of Roof Only Air Sealing Strategies on 1 1 2 Story Homes in Cold Climates written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this second study on solutions to ice dams in 1-1/2 story homes, five test homes located in both cold and very cold climates were analyzed for air leakage reduction rates following modifications by independent contractors on owner-occupied homes. The reason for choosing this house type was they are very common in our area and very difficult to air seal and insulate effectively. Two projectsfollowed a roof-only Exterior Thermal Moisture Management System (ETMMS) process. One project used an interior-only approach to roof air sealing and insulation. The remaining two projects used a deep energy retrofit approach for whole house (foundation wall, above grade wall, roof) air leakage and heat loss reduction. All were asked to provide information regarding project goals, process, andpre and post-blower door test results. Additional air leakage reduction data was provided by several NorthernSTAR Building America industry partners for interior-applied, roof-only modifications on 1-1/2 story homes. The data represents homes in the general market as well as homes that were part of the state of Minnesota weatherization program. A goal was to compare exterior air sealing methodswith interior approaches. This pool of data enabled us to compare air tightness data from over 220 homes using similar air seal methods.
Download or read book Ventilation Guide written by Armin Rudd and published by . This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Measured Air Leakage of Buildings written by Heinz R. Trechsel and published by ASTM International. This book was released on 1986 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Air Leakage of US Homes written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LBNL Residential Diagnostics Database (ResDB) contains blower door measurements and other diagnostic test results of homes in United States. Of these, approximately 134,000 single-family detached homes have sufficient information for the analysis of air leakage in relation to a number of housing characteristics. We performed regression analysis to consider the correlation between normalized leakage and a number of explanatory variables: IECC climate zone, floor area, height, year built, foundation type, duct location, and other characteristics. The regression model explains 68% of the observed variability in normalized leakage. ResDB also contains the before and after retrofit air leakage measurements of approximately 23,000 homes that participated in weatherization assistant programs (WAPs) or residential energy efficiency programs. The two types of programs achieve rather similar reductions in normalized leakage: 30% for WAPs and 20% for other energy programs.
Download or read book Applying Large Datasets to Developing a Better Understanding of Air Leakage Measurement in Homes written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. There are several methods for measuring air tightness that may result in different values and sometimes quite different uncertainties. The two main approaches trade off bias and precision errors and thus result indifferent outcomes for accuracy and repeatability. To interpret results from the two approaches, various questions need to be addressed, such as the need to measure the flow exponent, the need to make both pressurization and depressurization measurements and the role of wind in determining the accuracy and precision of the results. This article uses two large datasets of blower door measurements to reach the following conclusions. For most tests the pressure exponent should be measured but for wind speeds greater than 6 m/s a fixed pressure exponent reduces experimental error. The variability in reported pressure exponents is mostly due to changes in envelope leakage characteristics. Finally, it is preferable to test in both pressurization and depressurization modes due to significant differences between the results in these two modes.
Download or read book Airtightness Results of Roof only Air Sealing Strategies on 1 1 2 story Homes in Cold Climates written by Cindy Ojczyk and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this second study on solutions to ice dams in 1-1/2 story homes, five test homes located in both cold and very cold climates were analyzed for air leakage reduction rates following modifications by independent contractors on owner-occupied homes. The reason for choosing this house type was they are very common in our area and very difficult to air seal and insulate effectively. Two projects followed a roof-only Exterior Thermal Moisture Management System (ETMMS) process. One project used an interior-only approach to roof air sealing and insulation. The remaining two projects used a deep energy retrofit approach for whole house (foundation wall, above grade wall, roof) air leakage and heat loss reduction. All were asked to provide information regarding project goals, process, and pre and post-blower door test results. Additional air leakage reduction data was provided by several NorthernSTAR Building America industry partners for interior-applied, roof-only modifications on 1-1/2 story homes. The data represents homes in the general market as well as homes that were part of the state of Minnesota weatherization program. A goal was to compare exterior air sealing methods with interior approaches. This pool of data enabled us to compare air tightness data from over 220 homes using similar air seal methods.
Download or read book Ventilation Air Tightness and Indoor Air Quality in New Homes written by C. Dimitriloupolou and published by Building Research Establishment. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Improves the understanding of the relationships between air leakage, ventilation and indoor air quality
Download or read book Building America Case Study written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 2 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this second study on solutions to ice dams in 1-1/2 story homes, five test homes located in both cold and very cold climates were analyzed for air leakage reduction rates following modifications by independent contractors on owner-occupied homes. The reason for choosing this house type was they are very common in our area and very difficult to air seal and insulate effectively. Two projects followed a roof-only Exterior Thermal Moisture Management System (ETMMS) process. One project used an interior-only approach to roof air sealing and insulation. The remaining two projects used a deep energy retrofit approach for whole house (foundation wall, above grade wall, roof) air leakage and heat loss reduction. All were asked to provide information regarding project goals, process, and pre and post-blower door test results. Additional air leakage reduction data was provided by several NorthernSTAR Building America industry partners for interior-applied, roof-only modifications on 1-1/2 story homes. The data represents homes in the general market as well as homes that were part of the state of Minnesota weatherization program. A goal was to compare exterior air sealing methods with interior approaches. This pool of data enabled us to compare air tightness data from over 220 homes using similar air seal methods.
Download or read book Building Ventilation written by Mat Santamouris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-06-01 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ensuring optimum ventilation performance is a vital part of building design. Prepared by recognized experts from Europe and the US, and published in association with the International Energy Agency's Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre (AIVC), this authoritative work provides organized, classified and evaluated information on advances in the key areas of building ventilation, relevant to all building types. Complexities in airflow behaviour, climatic influences, occupancy patterns and pollutant emission characteristics make selecting the most appropriate ventilation strategy especially difficult. Recognizing such complexities, the editors bring together expertise on each key issue. From components to computer tools, this book offers detailed coverage on design, analysis and performance, and is an important and comprehensive publication in this field. Building Ventilation will be an invaluable reference for professionals in the building services industry, architects, researchers (including postgraduate students) studying building service engineering and HVAC, and anyone with a role in energy-efficient building design.
Download or read book Analysis of U S Residential Air Leakage Database written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The air leakage of a building envelope can be determined from fan pressurization measurements with a blower door. More than 70,000 air leakage measurements have been compiled into a database. In addition to air leakage, the database includes other important characteristics of the dwellings tested, such as floor area, year built, and location. There are also data for some houses on the presence of heating ducts, and floor/basement construction type. The purpose of this work is to identify house characteristics that can be used to predict air leakage. We found that the distribution of leakage normalized with floor area of the house is roughly lognormal. Year built and floor area are the two most significant factors to consider when predicting air leakage: older and smaller houses tend to have higher normalized leakage areas compared to newer and larger ones. Results from multiple linear regression of normalized leakage with respect to these two factors are presented for three types of houses: low-income, energy-efficient, and conventional. We demonstrate a method of using the regression model in conjunction with housing characteristics published by the US Census Bureau to derive a distribution that describes the air leakage of the single-family detached housing stock. Comparison of our estimates with published datasets of air exchange rates suggests that the regression model generates accurate estimates of air leakage distribution.
Download or read book Exterior Wall Airtightness and the Role of Air Barriers and Vapor Retarders written by Roger A. Peterson and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
