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Energy consumption in residential buildings is primarily driven by space conditioning applications. The primary energy use due to infiltration is more than 2.95 EJ (2.8 Quads), which is 29% of primary energy consumption attributable to building envelope components in residential buildings in US in 2010. There are advanced air barrier technologies and construction practices to reduce air leakage in buildings, which are currently available in the market. However, the lack of adequate information on their impact on energy consumption and the durability of buildings has caused the slow adoption of these technologies and construction practices. In the past, the authors developed an online calculator that estimates the potential energy and cost savings in major U.S., Canadian and Chinese cities from improvement in airtightness in commercial buildings. The calculator is being expanded by adding residential and additional commercial building data. In this paper, we present the impact of airtightness in residential buildings on site energy consumption and moisture transfer, using results in 52 major cities in the U.S. and 5 cities in Canada. By decreasing the air leakage rate of the building from 13 h-1 to 0.6 h-1 at 50 Pa (0.00 725 psi), the reduction in electricity consumption was up to 20% for climate zone 8 and the reduction in natural gas consumption for space heating was more than 40% for most of the climate zones. Results from this study show that air tightness is crucial for reducing energy consumption and moisture transfer in residential buildings.

Product Details

Published: 2022 Number of Pages: 10 Units of Measure: Dual Product Code(s): DBldgsXV-C015