Ventilation solutions for

overheated corridors in
multi-storey residential
buildings

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Whitepaper
(c) 2014 Colt International Licensing Ltd
 Colt whitepaper - Ventilation solutions for overheated corridors in multi-storey residential buildings

Summary

The quest for energy efficiency has led to very good sealing and insulation in residential buildings and an
increase in district heating schemes.
This has unintended consequences for stair lobbies, corridors and entrance halls, which tend to overheat,
resulting in unpleasant conditions for residents and possible issues maintaining cold water supply
temperatures.
One solution may be to make use of the equipment specified to provide smoke control of the common
areas. In this way it is possible to provide a simple and effective cross flow ventilation system to extract
warm, stale air from these spaces and their ceiling voids.
This can be enhanced by adding active cooling to the ventilation air.

This whitepaper covers:
• Why the need for new
approaches to ventilation has
arisen
• General design considerations
• Making use of smoke control
systems to provide day to day
ventilation to reduce
temperatures in corridors in
residential buildings
• Using active cooling.
Why this issue has arisen
The quest for energy efficiency, accelerated
by requirements from Approved Document
L to the Building Regulations (ADL) and
encouraged by certification schemes such
as BREEAM, has led to very good sealing
and insulation in residential buildings and an
increase in district heating schemes.
There has been a continuing push for
improved energy efficiency in buildings, driven
largely by government targets for reductions
in CO2 emissions. ADL has been regularly
tightening energy use targets, resulting in
buildings that are better insulated, better
sealed and have more efficient services. All this
is very laudable but it can have unintended
consequences.
The motivation for district heating schemes
again comes from the quest for energy
efficiency but now there is an additional heat
source distributed around the building.
ASHRAE have taken up concerns that the
drive for energy efficiency has reduced the
focus on IAQ in buildings and that building
users may be suffering as a result, and after
all, buildings are primarily there to provide a
comfortable and healthy environment for their
occupiers.
Corridors in multi-storey residential
buildings
One particular example of this problem
is conditions in corridors in multi-storey
residential buildings.
If we look back 10, 15 or 20 years, U values
were high, air leakage was high and corridors
generally extended to outside walls and had
windows, so if there were any environmental
concerns they were largely that the corridors
might be too cold in winter. Nowadays we
have well sealed, well insulated corridors and
architectural trends have changed so that
corridors are often landlocked. The concern
over cold winter conditions has largely
evaporated. But there has also been another
change. Apartments, which were generally
heated using individual electrical appliances,
now often benefit from a centralised source
of heat, engineered to provide much greater
energy efficiency. This heat source circulates
hot water around the building, using the ceiling
voids above corridors as the main horizontal
distribution route. Of course the pipe work is
well insulated, but the heat leaking from these
pipes 24/7 leads to overheating of such well
insulated and sealed corridors.
This was first recognised as a problem around
5 years ago and it is something that is now
receiving more attention as designers search
for effective solutions with low energy and
low maintenance requirements. Occupants
who have paid large sums of money for rental
or purchase expect reasonably comfortable
conditions in corridors, despite them only
being transit spaces, but will not want to pay
high service charges for the privilege.

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 Colt whitepaper - Ventilation solutions for overheated corridors in multi-storey residential buildings

7500mm
Max
One solution: using smoke control systems as a dual purpose system to provide day
to day ventilation
7500mm

Fortunately in the UK there are regulations and standards (e.g. Approved Document B, BS 9991)
Max

requiring ventilation of stairs and some lobbies and corridors, albeit for smoke control rather
than day to day comfort ventilation, and it is not a huge step to adapt these systems to solve the
overheating problem.

Early attempts at dual purpose systems were often crude and experimental, with no-one being
able to confidently quantify the problem and hence no real design specification being available,
but as experience has developed so suppliers have been able to refine their systems.

Options for dual purpose equipment options for ventilation of common corridors

1. Natural ventilation using AOVs

2. Natural ventilation using shafts
3. Mechanical ventilation using shafts

1. Natural ventilation using AOVs

7500mm
Openable ventilators or windows (OVs) or automatically opening ventilators (AOVs) may be

Max
used to evacuate smoke where common stairs, corridors or lobbies extend to external walls.
7500mm

On the face of it this appears the simplest solution but there are also several design challenges.
Max

AOVs are wind-dependent. An AOV scheme may require maglocks on cross corridor doors
to allow through-flow, since single sided ventilation has no inlet and thus is inefficient. AOVs
provide poor temperature control, as air flow rates are often driven more by wind-induced than
temperature-induced pressure differences. The risk of finger trapping and of someone falling
through an AOV must be minimised or eliminated, and controls may be needed to make the AOV
open and close on changes of temperature and in rain.

Controls have to ensure that the vents must close on fire, except for the fire floor.

2. Natural ventilation using shafts

Where corridors or lobbies are enclosed with no access to an outside wall, ventilation shafts
with dampers or fire doors and natural ventilators may be used to evacuate smoke.

The benefits of natural compared to mechanical shafts include the facts that no fans are needed
(together with their cabling and controls and their standby power requirements), that such
systems are virtually silent, that purchasing and operating costs are low, and that there is no
requirement for roof top plant.

In order for a single shaft to function, some additional measures may be required to provide inlet
for effective day to day ventilation. The smoke or air can be moved into the shaft from the stair
through a controllable damper or fire door, but there can be issues with finger trapping with
doors, so dampers tend to be the favoured option.

These shafts are less wind-dependent than AOVs but care must be taken to locate them for
effective ventilation, and like AOVs they cannot provide effective temperature control. Since
these shafts connect several floors, it may be difficult to achieve desired conditions on all floors
simultaneously, with the added risk of cross contamination of heat from one floor to another.

Controls may be needed to make the shaft operate on changes of temperature and in rain, and
the shaft will generally need some form of weathered roof termination.

Single natural shaft in smoke mode

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 Colt whitepaper - Ventilation solutions for overheated corridors in multi-storey residential buildings

3. Mechanical ventilation using shafts

Mechanical shafts are used in similar circumstances as natural shafts, Run & standby fans
1m22AOV at
but the shafts, grilles and dampers are smaller than with natural shafts, head of stairs
which is an improvement architecturally.

Mechanical shafts have the benefits compared to natural shafts that

they can be small, they tend to be more flexible in layout, and they
can provide improved ventilation to compensate for extended travel
distances.

The disadvantages of mechanical systems are that standby power

and fire rated cable are needed. Unlike natural schemes, we need to
consider acceptable noise levels for day to day use, which can be solved
Fire floor
with the use of VSDs and attenuation. Furthermore, the roof has to be Lobby
big enough to accommodate the attenuators.
Stairs
There are similar issues to natural shafts with regards to dampers Single mechanical shaft in smoke mode
or fire doors as well as the need for some form of weathered roof
termination.

It has become common practice for architects to gain design flexibility

by extending dead end travel distances beyond 7.5 or 15m using
improved smoke ventilation as a compensating feature. These “extended
travel” kinds of systems generally require a shaft at each end of the
corridor, which can be ideal for day to day ventilation.

As with natural shafts, it may be difficult to achieve desired conditions

on all floors simultaneously, and it is often necessary to limit the
number of floors ventilated at one time.

Location of shafts Transfer of air to and from shafts in day to day mode

With single shaft systems the two initial decisions which drive the
efficiency of the system are the source of replacement air and the shaft
location. The source of inlet air is easy: the stair always has a high level
ventilator, so this (if suitably weathered) can allow air in and a small
fire rated motorised damper can be used to transfer the air into each
lobby. The shaft location needs a little more thought. For smoke control
purposes, regulations allow the shaft to be located anywhere. However,
for day to day ventilation, it really needs to be located as far as possible
from the air inlet for maximum effectiveness.
The other important consideration relating to the shafts themselves
is how to transfer air to or from them in day to day mode.Various
ventilator types are used for air and smoke transfer in smoke control
mode: motorised fire doors, flap ventilators or dampers and grilles. All
of these are large and not really suitable for balancing the much smaller
air flows needed at each floor for day to day ventilation. In addition
some can present other risks when regularly opened, such as finger
trapping or shaft access.Various solutions are available, depending upon
the budget available and the required sophistication of control.

With twin shaft systems the shafts are normally as far apart as possible
for smoke control purposes so no special thought has to be given to
their location, so the system can be readily configured to provide day to
day ventilation with minimal additions.
Moving up to the roof, whether the shafts provide natural or mechanical
ventilation in smoke control mode, a fan will be needed for day to day
ventilation. A choice must be made in terms of whether the main fan
can be dual purpose (i.e. for smoke and day to day) with inverter
control and attenuation or a separate smaller low power, low noise fan
for day to day ventilation and a larger fan dedicated to smoke ventilation
would be more effective. The quest for energy efficiency may restrict
the options for dual purpose fans in the future as the ErP Directive is
tightened. If a separate fan is used there needs to be suitable control to
avoid bypassing between fans.

Day to day
damper above
ceiling

Smoke damper

Dual shafts in day to day ventilation mode

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 Colt whitepaper - Ventilation solutions for overheated corridors in multi-storey residential buildings

Limitations of using smoke shafts in day
to day mode
The limitation of all such systems is that they
cannot cool the incoming air, so corridor
temperatures will fluctuate with outside
ambient temperature. Running the systems
at night can pre-cool the corridor structure,
limiting day time peaks, but corridor
temperatures will still generally match or
slightly exceed outside temperatures.
In expensive, high quality developments this
may be considered unacceptable and designers
have no choice but to turn to air conditioning
of the corridors, a solution which provides
much better control of conditions in the
corridors, but at a significant ongoing cost in
terms of maintenance and energy use.
Colt CoolShaft: providing smoke
ventilation and combating overheating
in common areas of residential buildings
with active cooling
Colt now has an intermediate solution
between full air conditioning and day to day
ventilation systems that do not condition
the air.
Coolshaft is an enhanced mechanical cooling
system. It enhances the ventilation system
performance by pre-cooling the incoming air
but without the high running costs of full air
conditioning. The system runs much of the
year in normal free cooling ventilation mode,
with evaporative cooling brought on line when
internal temperatures exceed a set point.
Evaporative cooling cannot match the close
temperature control of air conditioning, but
for all but the most exclusive developments is
an ideal solution.
While a ventilation system supplying untreated
outside air is able to achieve temperatures
in the corridor at typically 3-5oC above the
outside ambient, a CoolShaft system is able
to reduce temperatures below the outside
ambient by providing active cooling in the
corridors.
Colt’s Coolshaft system is designed for each
client’s individual application and is sized to
suit that building’s heat load.
The weather data from CISBE Guide C is
used to determine the likely performance of
the system. Usually the system is designed
using the 99th percentile weather data and
would achieve results as shown in the diagram
below.
Whilst an average of 24oC in the corridor
is the normal design upper limit, even under
excessive external temperatures reasonable
internal conditions can be achieved hence
keeping the building under the CIBSE limit
of “28oC for 99% of the year” under most
conditions. In fact the hotter it is, potentially
the better the system works, and the limiting
factor is the air humidity. So, if the external
air is above 90% RH, then the system cannot
actively cool the air, but this is an unusual
condition in the UK unless the temperature
is low, in which case active cooling is not
required.

Since CoolShaft is a combined smoke and

day-to-day shaft system, we have ensured that
if there is a fire there will be no compromise
in its ability to ventilate the common area and
allow smoke to escape.

28OC
50% RH

21OC 27OC

With CoolShaft, the incoming air is pre-cooled adiabatically when temperatures reach a set point

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 Colt whitepaper - Ventilation solutions for overheated corridors in multi-storey residential buildings

The many benefits of CoolShaft begin
with low energy cooling
It doesn’t need to cost the earth to cool a
building: using the cooling power of water, it’s
possible to achieve low energy cooling.
Here are some of the features and benefits of
CoolShaft:
• Cooling of corridors. Whereas basic day to
day ventilation systems for common corridors
and lobbies use outside air to ventilate the
space, the CoolShaft provides active cooling
with air up to 10oC below ambient
temperatures, providing highly desirable
conditions for residents.
• Economical. CoolShaft systems offer cooling
that is 4 - 7 times more economical than
conventional air conditioning systems, with
lower initial costs. CoolShaft runs much of the
year in free cooling mode, with evaporative
cooling brought on-line when temperatures
rise.
• Low energy use. Evaporative cooling is up
to 90% efficient. CoolShaft only needs a small
quantity of electricity for the fan that circulates
the air and for the water pump.
• High cooling capacity. One CoolShaft
unit can cool multiple floors, and often the
complete building, owing to its inherent high
cooling capacity.
• No refrigerants. CoolShaft is free
from refrigerants, thus there are no F gas
compliance issues, and there is no need for
refrigerant / water pipework in the building.
• Hygiene certificate. CoolShaft has an
integrated water quality system using simple
and robust technology. It provides safe
circulation with temperature control and
regular renewal of water to avoid the growth
of bacteria and scale. It has been extensively
tested and certified hygienically in compliance
with VDI 6022 (“Hygienic Requirements for
Ventilation Systems and Units for Internal
Spaces”). This is a rigorous standard for air
conditioning systems and confirms the high
quality of supply air.
• A space saver. CoolShaft has a smaller
rooftop footprint and saving on rooftop
ductwork compared to conventional air
conditioning systems, thereby freeing up space.
• Lightweight. CoolShaft is more lightweight
than conventional air conditioning systems.

Conclusions

The designer has a number of options to deal with the issue of

overheated corridors in residential buildings. This whitepaper describes
the pros and cons of each approach.

The system supplier should be able to provide advice and guidance

about the options as well as proven standard solutions.

One thing the supplier cannot provide, though, is the design heat load
which the system needs to deal with. In principle this should be
relatively easy to estimate, based upon flow and return water
temperatures, pipe sizes and insulation, plus of course an allowance
for lighting and any other heat sources within the corridor.

See www.coltinfo.co.uk/coolshaft.html for further information.

About Colt
Since 1931 Colt has been harnessing the natural elements to provide healthy, comfortable and safe working and living conditions
in buildings. Colt is a specialist in smoke control, climate control and HVAC systems, industrial ventilation and solar shading, with a
presence in more than 50 countries.