Ventilation Design and Performance in U.S. Office Buildings

Published

April 30, 2005

Author(s)

Andrew K. Persily, J Gorfain

Abstract

Building ventilation is a primary determinant of indoor air quality (IAQ) as it impacts contaminant concentrations and occupant comfort in terms of the perception of odor and irritation. However, relatively few measurements of office building ventilation performance have been conducted, and those data that exist generally have not employed consistent measurement methods and have not involved representative collections of buildings. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Building Assessment Survey and Evaluation (BASE) study was conducted to assess IAQ, including ventilation, in a large number of randomly selected office buildings throughout the U.S. (Womble et al. 1996). Ventilation performance assessment was a key part of the survey, and this paper presents a summary of the analysis of the ventilation information collected as part of the study. The full report (Persily and Gorfain 2004) contains a more complete description of the analysis and a more detailed presentation of the results.The EPA BASE study was originally conceived to address the data gap that exists regarding IAQ in public and commercial office buildings. As described in the study protocol (EPA 2003), the primary goal was to define the status of the existing building stock with respect to determinants of IAQ and occupant perceptions. The BASE protocol addresses three major areas: thermal comfort and environmental measurements; building and HVAC characterization; and an occupant questionnaire. It is expected that the BASE data will be used to develop distributions of IAQ, building and HVAC characteristics, generate new hypotheses regarding

Citation

ASHRAE Journal

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

carbon dioxide, design, measurement, mechanical ventilation, office buildings, ventilation

Citation

Persily, A. and Gorfain, J. (2005), Ventilation Design and Performance in U.S. Office Buildings, ASHRAE Journal (Accessed December 13, 2024)