ENERGY USED FOR VENTILATION AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THE SELECTION OF BUILDING MATERIALS

The main objective of the research project described in this paper was to study the potential for reducing energy used for ventilating buildings by using low-polluting building materials, without compromising the indoor air quality. To quantify this potential, the exposure-response relationships, i.e. the relationships between ventilation rate and perceived indoor air quality, were established for rooms furnished with different categories of polluting materials and the simulations of energy used for ventilation were carried out. The results suggest that the exposure-response relationships vary between different building materials and that the perceived air quality can be improved considerably when polluting building materials are substituted with materials that pollute less. The energy simulations indicate that selecting low-polluting materials will result in considerable energy savings as a result of reducing the ventilation rates required to achieve acceptable indoor air quality.