The prevailing residential ventilation standard in North America, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 62.2, specifies volumetric airflow requirements as a function of the overall size of the home and the number of bedrooms, assumes a fixed, minimal amount of infiltration, and requires mechanical ventilation to achieve the remainder. The standard allows for infiltration credits and intermittent ventilation patterns that can be shown to provide comparable performance. Whole-house ventilation methods have a substantial effect on time-varying indoor pollutant concentrations. If alternatives specified by Standard 62.2, such as intermittent ventilation, are used, short-term pollutant concentrations could exceed acute health standards even if chronic health standards are met. The authors present a methodology for comparing ASHRAE- and non-ASHRAE-specified ventilation scenarios on relative indoor pollutant concentrations. We use numerical modeling to compare the maximum time-averaged concentrations for acute exposure relevant (1-hour, 8-hour, 24-hour ) and chronic exposure relevant (1-year) time periods for four different ventilation scenarios in six climates with a range of normalized leakage values. The results suggest that long-term concentrations are the most important metric for assessing the effectiveness of whole-house ventilation systems in meeting exposure standards and that, if chronic health exposure standards are met, acute standards will also be met.

The purpose of ventilation is to dilute or remove indoor contaminants that an occupant could be exposed to. It can be provided by mechanical or natural means. 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. The vast majority of homes in the United States and indeed the world are ventilated through natural means such as infiltration caused by air leakage. Newer homes in the western world are tight and require mechanical 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 Standard 62.2 specifies how much mechanical ventilation is considered necessary to provide acceptable indoor air quality, but that standard is weak on how infiltration can contribute towards meeting the total requirement. In the past ASHRAE Standard 136 was used to do this, but new theoretical approaches and expanded weather data have made that standard out of date. This article will describe how to properly treat infiltration as an equivalent ventilation approach and then use new data and these new approaches to demonstrate how these calculations might be done both in general and to update Standard 136.

Ventilation dilutes or removes indoor contaminants to reduce occupant exposure. In a multi-zone environment such as a house, there will be different dilution rates and different source strengths in every zone. The total ventilation rate is the most important factor in determining the exposure of occupants to given sources, but the zone- specific distribution of exhaust and supply air, and the mixing of ventilation air can have significant roles. Different types of ventilation systems will provide different amounts of mixing depending on several factors such as air leakage through the building envelope, air distribution systems and the location of sources and occupants. This paper reports recent results of investigations to determine the impact that air mixing has on exposures of residential occupants to prototypical contaminants of concern. Evaluations of existing field measurements and simulations reported in the literature are combined with new analyses to provide an integrated overview of the topic. The results show that for extreme cases additional mixing can be a significant factor but for typical homes looking at average exposures mixing is not helpful and can even make exposures worse.

A substantial fraction of HVAC energy use in large commercial buildings is due to fan operation. Fan energy use depends in part on the relationship between system pressure drop and flow through the fan, which is commonly called a "system curve". As a step toward enabling better selections of air-handling system components and analyses of common energy efficiency measures such as duct static pressure reset and duct leakage sealing, this paper shows that a simple four-parameter physical model can be used to define system curves. Our model depends on the square of the fan flow, as is commonly considered. It also includes terms that account for linear-like flow resistances such as filters and coils, and for supply duct leakage when damper positions are fixed or are changed independently of static pressure or fan flow. Only two parameters are needed for systems with variable-position supply dampers (e.g., VAV box dampers modulating to control flow). For these systems, reducing or eliminating supply duct leakage does not change the system curve. The parametric system curve may be most useful when applied to field data. Non-linear techniques could be used to fit the curve to fan pressure rise and flow measurements over a range of operating conditions. During design, when measurements are unavailable, one could use duct design calculation tools instead to determine the coefficients.

Ventilation reduces occupant exposure to indoor contaminants by diluting or removing them. In a multi-zone environment such as a house, every zone will have different dilution rates and contaminant source strengths. The total ventilation rate is the most important factor in determining occupant exposure to given contaminant sources, but the zone-specific distribution of exhaust and supply air and the mixing of ventilation air can play significant roles. Different types of ventilation systems will provide different amounts of mixing depending on several factors such as air leakage, air distribution system, and contaminant source and occupant locations. Most U.S. and Canadian homes have central heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, which tend to mix the air; thus, the indoor air in different zones tends to be well mixed for significant fractions of the year. This article reports recent results of investigations to determine the impact of air mixing on exposures of residential occupants to prototypical contaminants of concern. We summarize existing literature and extend past analyses to determine the parameters than affect air mixing as well as the impacts of mixing on occupant exposure, and to draw conclusions that are relevant for standards development and for practitioners designing and installing home ventilation systems. The primary conclusion is that mixing will not substantially affect the mean indoor air quality across a broad population of occupants, homes, and ventilation systems, but it can reduce the number of occupants who are exposed to extreme pollutant levels. If the policy objective is to minimize the number of people exposed above a given pollutant threshold, some amount of mixing will be of net benefit even though it does not benefit average exposure. If the policy is to minimize exposure on average, then mixing air in homes is detrimental and should not be encouraged. We also conclude that most homes in the US have adequate mixing already, but that new, high-performance homes may require additional mixing. Also our results suggest that some differentiation should be made in policies and standards for systems that provide continuous exhaust, thereby reducing relative dose for occupants overall.