Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

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.