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    Sasc

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    santosh Indulkar

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    of 7
    ASHRAE & JOURNAL Myths About Building By Amtrow K. Persil, Ph.D. ‘Member ASHRAE tis often assumed that commercial and institutional buildings are fairly sirtight and that envelope sr leakage does not have a significant im- Envelopes system. A building can be very tight in ave, ‘Pact on energy consumption and indoor air quality in these buildings. tons. ‘Purthermory, itis assumed that more recently constructed buildings are tighter ‘than older buildings. However, very little data is available on the airtightness of building envelopes in commercial and institutional buildings. ‘The data that exist show significant timation of building ventilation rates a8 levels of air leakage in theas buildings they impact energy consumption andin- © ‘ion ofthe ney und far apace condi in dana of envelope ith ‘Those statements are almost noes and ventilation, its important to dis- ‘over supported by any test data for the tinguish between emvelope leakage or Building envelope sirtightees is im- leaks inthe building envelope caused by portant besed on its relevance tothe ee- preemures induced by weather and vent the intentional y, controlled see cre one |e Ruma ely, steed eae eee March 1999 ‘therefore i the only known bess for mak- ‘ng statements regarding te srtightness ‘of this group of buikings. Nonetholes, ‘the mmber of buildings is mall and ars ‘not random samples ofthe building stock, at lage. Therefore, any conclusions from ‘his analysis hve limited peneralizabiity. ‘Recta thor ‘aden Kec, Pio grop lif ha ‘ating nd Fe Bawah Labret ofthe Me ‘tonal naate of Standards and chnaogy tn ‘Groner, Hatin of ASAE Sd ‘ng Standard Project Comaites 62.1, Yoatfltion {or Aap Idea ic oly, tof arin ‘mone ond va ch AST Skee B25 ta er hi oy ASHRAE Journal 29 “ame i ESS Jopes is mossured using a fan prossuriza (er decrease) tha preanare within a buld- ‘ng above (or below) the outdoor pres- ‘sre, The airflow rate through the fn that ‘srequired to maintain this induced pres- sure difference is measured. Generally, a series of pressure diftr- ences is indaced during a pressurization ‘at, ranging from sbout 16 Pa(0.04 tn. of _water) to as high as75 Pa (03 i. of wate). ‘These elevated prossures aro usod to override the pressure differences induced by weather effects, that is, indoor-oot door air temperature difference and wind ‘speed. Therefore, the test results are in- seven of weather conditions and provide a measure of the physical ir- tightness of the exterior envelope of tho “Fa shar building. e ‘Asmentioned cartier, cuvelopouitgh- Other ‘nets values can be used in airflow mod- ‘ols to prodict building infiltration ros induced by weather and veatilation sy- Table 1: Summary of commercial buildings ancfyzed. ‘tem operation. No simple calculation ‘method or rule-of-dimmb exists that re- lates envelope srtightness to infiltration in commercial buildings. This is due to ‘the complanity ofthese buildings and the sffects of ventilation system operation. (Generally, multizonenirflow models mat ‘be used to relate artighinoss to infiira- tons82 ‘ASTM Standard E779*ia tect metbod. that describes the fan pressurization test ‘procedure in detail, including the specii- cations of the test equipment and the szabss ofthe et dati coating 8 fan pressurization tost in a commercial ‘building, te building's own sir handling equipment sometimes can be employed ‘to induce tho test pressures, A Canadian (General Standards Board (CGSB) sondard describes the use of the air-handling equipment ina building to consct mnch 1 test. In other cases, a large fan is ‘brought tothe building to perform the test, ‘The same procedure often is used 10 smeasare the sitightness of single-family residential vikings, where the fest equip ‘ment is generally referred to as a blower ‘doox." Chapter 25, Ventilation and Inf tration, of the 1997 ASHRAE Hand- ook—Findamantals contains & short description of fan pressurization testing. 40 ASHRAE Journal BUILDING ENVELOPE ‘The remus of fn pressurization test are in the form of a series of indoor-out- ‘door pressure differences and tho airflow ‘ates required to induce ther. The results of such a test, based on theen data, ae reported using a variety of parameters, Often, the test results are reported in terms of the airflow rate at some refer- ‘nce preasure divided by the building ‘volume, floor area or surface area. Such QCA oO ‘where 0 is the siflow rate induced to ‘maintain the indoor-outdoor pressure dif- ference Ap, C is referred to a8 the flow coofficient, and n is the flow exponent. (Once the vaines of C and n havo boca determined from the test data, the oqua- ton can be used to predict the airflow ‘ate through the building envelope at any ‘given pressure difference, Often. cepe- ‘cially in houses, this equation is used to calculate the sirflow rate at an indoor- ‘outdoor preesre difference of 4Pa (0.016. ‘in ofwater), ‘This airflow rate is used to ostiiat thoso-called effective leakage area ofthe ing, which is tho area of an orifice with a discharge coefficient of 1 that ‘would romutt inthe tama sicflow rate at the reference pressure difference, Efizo- ‘tive leakage area sometimes is calculated at pressure differences other than 4 Pa (0.016 in. of water) and for ther vahos of cavelopesitightnees The reels re pre- ‘seated hero as sirflow rates at an indoor- ‘outdoor preasure difference of 75 Pa (03 {in of water) normalized by the surface ‘area of the building envelope. (When nec- casary, this cooversion was based on an Serato va of ho fo expos of The values of envelope sirtightness sre given fn units ofmZh mi, which can, March 1999 ‘The one-story balght cf 2.4 m 8. The two-ctory house is assumed to have a floor area of 100 (1000 8 on eect floes Both hmuees ore eeured te have « square for plan Table 3: Ai leakage values for US. houses. ‘used in houses is tho effective leakage eroa at 4Pa (0.016 in. of water) which can. also be normalized by the surface area of ‘te building. To convert the75 Pa sicflow sata to the 4 Pa ELA nornnalized by the sxtice aree, ia units of cs? of leakage ‘agea por m? of wall area, nmltiply by 0.16. ‘Another comin measure of airtight ‘noes used in single-family residential ‘buildings i the air change rato at 50 Pa (@.2 ta. of wate). This atr change res is ‘he airflow rate required to achiove a 50 Pa (02 in. of water) proamure difference divided by the building vohme. A much Aerger rurnber of presarrzation txt have ‘bon conducted in single-family residen- ‘tal buildings than in the commercial build ‘ings that aro the subject ofthis article ™ 'Basod on the residential building data ‘obtained inthe United States, value of 2alr changes per hour, or 2! at $0 Pa ‘could bo considered a very tight hous, ‘while value ofS could be considered smoderstaly tight. A value of 10 i? could. ‘be considered as typical, while 20 br! or ater woul considered ty. While ‘tains a summary ofthe buildings that are ‘usidered bre inching infrmation on building type, location, mumber of so- set and age. Tha largact umber of build ings texted, 69 ofthe 139 buildings, were part ofa stody conducted by the Florida clude office buildings from the United Statng Canada and the U.K," school ‘buildings from New Yori? and Canada, ‘etn buildings from Canada,3 and indi ‘rial buildings from Sweden.” It should be apparent from Table 1, ‘and from closer examination of the data, ‘on which this table is based, thatthe 139 ‘buildings are not a representative collec- tion of commercial buildings around the world or within any given country. Rather ‘nique and to obtain some limited artight- et an fr a ultng ype a pen ‘rea. The small number. tive tothe umber of aa {ngs and their lack of roprosentativences ‘mits the generattzbty of any concin- sions dravm from studying the daca. ‘There ina predominance of one-story building except fir office buildings, and skmod al ofthe buildings from th Florida study ave aly one sory. The mean ages ASHRAE Journal a Ae taoga 15 Panne?) 8 ont a & adage 75 Pann rt am Se a ee a Si al oneocon tener et ge Figure 3: Airtightness volves grouped by wall construction, of the buildings in the datasets all range from sbout 20 t0 30 ‘years and the ranges of ages m osch dataset are similar, with ‘the exception ofthe NRC buildings which tend to be somewhat ‘dr than the rest of the Table 2 suromacizes th sirtightnees data, again grouped by ‘building data sot. as in Table J. For each ofthe data sty, except the “other” category in Table 1, Table 2 presents the moan ait Jelnge rate at 75 Pa in units of /b-n 1s well atthe standard deviation and the minimum snd meximom values, These valnes are also preseaed forall 139 buildings, the buildings only in the Florida stady, and the 70 buildings not from the Florida stody. The mean sirtightess value for al the buildings is 27.1 fin, but the range and somdand devistion ae ige. The ‘buildings from the Florida study tend tobe leakier than the reat, ‘with omeanairtightnoes valu of34.0 mi/h-- mtn high ax 124 mfh-n?. ‘Al ofthe taller buildings (15 stories or greater) are office ‘buildings, with one from the NIST study of U.S. office build ‘ngs ad the rest fram the NRC study in Canad, They also all ‘have conarete panel or curtain wall construction, The mid-height ‘buildings (five wo 10 mores) are also office buildings, plas one ASHRAE Journal as ee five-story apartment building. Three ofthe buildings with air Jealcage values of about 20 1/b-m* or less have concrete panel ‘walls and ono bas ‘walls; tho leakiost of the group (thout 43 i/o) basa curtain wall ‘Without additional study ofthe constroction iti difficult to cxplain the trends seen in Figare 5, but it appears that the type ‘of construction seen in the taller buildings lends tee to more ‘irtight envelopes. Taller buildings might require more careful

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