Novel Ventilation Systems for School Buildings

Novel Ventilation Systems for School Buildings

Title: Introduction to Breathing Buildings

Speaker: Dr David Hamlyn

Event: CIBSE SDG Committee Meeting

Date: December 2009

Location: University College London

 

Company Info:

Breathing Buildings was established in January 2006 after a 5 year scientific research programme at the University of Cambridge, funded by BP plc, to understand the fundamentals of natural ventilation. The research led to the filing of a patent entitled Passive Ventilation Stack, owned by the University of Cambridge, and to which Breathing Buildings has exclusive commercial rights. Breathing Buildings was formed to commercialise the technology and secured 2 years of seed funding from BP to develop and test prototype stacks. The company’s mission is “to have as significant an impact on the energy consumption of the built environment as possible”. We are pursuing our goal by now manufacturing and distributing e-stack low energy ventilation systems as well as providing design consulting services to the industry.

 

Seminar Introduction:

Ventilation is a critical factor in determining the environmental performance of buildings, from energy use to the health and comfort of the occupants. Natural ventilation schemes can be used to help comply with building regulations, but need to be designed as an integral part of the overall building design. This seminar starts with an introduction to the challenges of low energy ventilation. We then review the different natural ventilation strategies which can be deployed and compare the energy consumption of different solutions. We show that by invoking a controlled mixing ventilation strategy in colder weather and a displacement ventilation strategy in warmer weather (such as used by the e-stack system), thermal comfort can be controlled and heating energy use minimised. CO2 data is shown demonstrating the importance of a controlled natural ventilation system, especially in winter.

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