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Infiltration VS Ventilation

V

Vibrato

Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
13
AAAAllrighty then...

My local compadres and I have been searching for some info on easily expainable science that indicates a home with

5+ ach is more expensive to heat than the same home with 3 ach and mechanical ventilation.

I know- the right wing extremist say- We make the houses more expensive so we don't heat outside air coming in, then we make them more expensive to heat the outside air we have to bring in- so we'll never sell a house again.

And the left wing extremists say- Controlling the conditioning of the ventilation makes the home more efficient in all ways and pays great dividends in the long run and if we don't do it we'll all die, probably by this time tomorrow.

We know the theories, but when I do the reaserch i find a thousand articles on how infiltration is bad, and a bunch on the cost comparisons of different mechanical ventilation techniques- but I cannot find a conditioned space cost comparison of a home with normal infiltration per the 2009 code series compared to the costs of a home built to the 2012 code series wich requires mechanical ventilation.

Personally, I don't care which way is shown to be more effective, I just would like to know which way is more effective. Help me out- where's the hard data?

:popcorn And I got my CBO last week. Gotta say, kind of a confidence builder to get that one out of the way. :cheers
 
You probably won't find this comparison. The reason we can compare the mechanical ventilation techniques is that they are installed using guidelines, so performance from one house to the next should be relatively similar. To my knowledge the same does not exist on how to allow for infiltration through the building envelope, so one house may be as efficient as certain techniques or even more efficient, but others would be horribly inefficient.
 
Vibrato said:
:popcorn And I got my CBO last week. Gotta say, kind of a confidence builder to get that one out of the way. :cheers
Click to expand...
Congrats!!! Now go to work! :)
 
Tmurray- Your prolly right, feild construction varies so much from one house to the next with the same genreal using different subs, let alone different contractors alrtogether. I guess I was hoping that since this is such an important and devisive issue that one side or the other would have done a controlled test that can be checked to show they were right. (or at least an engineered estimate where the inputs can be checked to determine if it is an apples to apples comparison.)

Thanks Mule- love your tag. My favorite line to an irate contractor is "Dood, look- Building codes dictate the crappiest construction allowed by law... and you didn't make the cut. What do you want from me?"
 
After thinking about this a little more...

You know, when doing a simulated performance Alternative design in accordance with IECC (2009) section 405, you can take a design, set a value for the infiltration rates and estimate the cost for heating and cooling.

You can do the same thing and set the filtration rate lower with mechanical ventilation and estimate the costs for heating and cooling...

I don't have the software to do a complete simulated performance, has anyone done this? If so, Whatja find? Can I see the results?

It would be easy to add in the costs of the equipment if you wanted to, also...
 
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