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Building Tight - Ventilating Right? How Are New Air tightness standards affecting indoor air quality in dwellings?

This paper discusses research that examines the performance of contemporary low energy housing in the context of ventilation rates and occupant health and identifies shortcomings with current ventilation strategies in housing. The research is based on a series of six Technology Strategy Board funded Building Performance Evaluation projects won through competitive funding applications to the TSB BPE programme, with a contract value of £470k. This is a part of a UK wide programme of BPE, of which Sharpe is an expert evaluator, undertaken in collaboration with a number of industry partners including Glasgow Housing Association, Hanover Scotland HA, Cube HA, ECD Architects, Scottish Government (through Architecture and Design Scotland). The research is informing government policy through the DCLG and has led to commissions to undertake research to revise Building Standards by the Scottish Government and, most recently, to undertake further research for Scottish Government Building Standards into Indoor Air Quality in Dwellings (MEARU leading a team with Strathclyde University, Assist Architects and Anderson Bell Christie Architects). The research is also being published through a range of academic outputs (Scenario Testing Of The Energy And Environmental Performance Of The ‘Glasgow House’ PLEA2013 - 29th Conference, Sustainable Architecture for a Renewable Future, Munich, Germany 10-12 September 2013; LEARNING FROM OUR EXPERIMENTS: MONITORED ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF LOW ENERGY BUILDINGS IN SCOTLAND; Building Performance Evaluation, book chapter in Innovations For Sustainable Building Design And Refurbishment In Scotland: The Outputs Of CIC Start Online Project’) and industry events (‘Building Tight, Ventilating Right?’ Air Quality in Housing 2nd February 2012; Building Performance Evaluation – Why and How?’, Glasgow Feb 2013-02-06; Institute for Housing and Construction Industry Training Board workshop, Healthy Housing and Buildings 13th June 2013 Belfast, Ecobuild 2013: Carrying out a successful post occupancy evaluation in ‘Buildings in Use’ session, 06 March 2013).