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TRENDS

Home Energy Magazine Online March/April 1997

TRENDS

Experts Ponder Multifamily Ventilation Solutions

Multifamily ventilation experts met to discuss ventilation strategies in apartment buildings. The results of their efforts will be presented at the Affordable Comfort conference in April.

How do you use diagnostic equipment (such as blower doors, and pressure sensors) to measure air flows in high-rise apartment buildings? What about low-rise buildings? How do you reduce infiltration in apartments? How do you ensure adequate ventilation? What is adequate ventilation? How do you determine if ventilation is adequate? What do we already know, what do we need to know, and how do we put it into practice?

These were among the questions tackled by a group of experts at a workshop on ventilation in apartment buildings in November. The meeting was organized by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Rebuild America program. Rebuild partners from Boston and Vermont were joined by 20 experts from the United States and Canada. They spent three days discussing, debating, and trying to resolve these conflicting issues. The participants included energy service companies, code officials, nonprofits, researchers, practitioners, and equipment manufacturers.

Ventilation experts demonstrate "high-tech" diagnostic techniques for determining air flow in multi-family buildings.

One outcome of the meeting will be a Guidebook on Multifamily Ventilation and Infiltration, to be distributed by Rebuild America. Organizers plan to present a draft of the guidebook in a session on multifamily ventilation at the Affordable Comfort conference in April 1997.

The Rebuild America Workshop on Ventilation and Infiltration in Apartment Buildings took place in Boston, Massachusetts on November 21-24, 1996.

--Rick Diamond

Rick Diamond is a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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