Influence of ventilation and infiltration flows on energy demand in residential buildings of Spain

Abstract

This work focuses on the study of the influence of ventilation 
flows on the energy demand of buildings with residential use. 
Currently, the Technical Building Code (CTE) is the Spanish 
regulation that regulates the criteria for design, calculation 
and execution of ventilation installations. The current criteria 
for the calculation of ventilation flows are conditioned by 
criteria of health of the air. However, these criteria influence 
the determinant form on the demands of conditioning, 
especially in heating.In this work a detailed method is applied 
for calculating hourly and hourly ventilation and infiltration 
flows. This method allows to study the influence of variables 
such as the permeability of the faces (fixed in EN 15242: 
2007), the external wind velocity, on the ventilation flows. In 
addition, we study the influence of these flows on the heating 
demands. This study is carried out in three Spanish climatic 
zones (Cadiz, Madrid and Zaragoza), where the external wind 
velocities and climatic severity change substantially. The result 
of this work demonstrates the importance of these variables, 
especially in the heating demands, finding differences of up to 
14% depending on the wind zone and the permeability of the 
building façade.

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