Full Description

The need for reducing carbon emissions from buildings has led to the adoption of absolute performance targets such as thermal energy demand intensity (TEDI) and energy use intensity (EUI) as part of building regulations and client design guidelines. This paper presents how, as airtightness and fabric efficiency in buildings increase, building process loads including ventilation and appliance selection become a determinant factor affecting TEDI.

The commonplace practice of using energy recovery in the ventilation equipment has left process ventilation from cooking and clothes drying as the remaining ventilation need requiring ducting to outside and with no heat recovery in place. Traditionally, equipment and appliances selected for kitchen extract and clothes drying are ducted to outside and, while this paradigm remains, ventilation heat losses and unnecessary faade penetrations complicate achieving TEDI targets. As electric or induction ranges replace natural gas cooking in residential and commercial settings due to decarbonization and indoor air pollution, kitchen hoods extracting to outside become redundant. The need for increased airtightness is likely to also make vented clothes dryers redundant due to potential depressurization, thermal bridge on the envelope, or wasted heat. Instead, it can be replaced with condensing clothes dryers, reducing the number of faade penetrations or the need for make-up air.

This case study shows how, by rethinking equipment and appliance selection, a women's shelter located in ASHRAE climate zone 6 achieved its TEDI target. The intention of this paper is to raise awareness of the intersection between appliance selection, airtightness and ventilation in buildings and how this becomes more relevant when designing in cold climates.

Product Details

Published: 2022 Number of Pages: 9 Units of Measure: Dual File Size: 1 file , 3 MB Product Code(s): D-TO-22-C072 Note: This product is unavailable in Russia, Belarus