[Equest-users] infiltration levels

[Kelsey VanTassel]

Here is a good paper on commercial building air-tightness.

Kelsey Van Tassel
Mechanical Engineer | kvantassel at sustaineng.com<mailto:kvantassel at sustaineng.com>
608.836.4488 ext. 20 | Fax: 608.836.4477

Sustainable Engineering Group
901 Deming Way, Suite 201
Madison, WI 53717
www.sustaineng.com<http://www.sustaineng.com/>


From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Rob Hudson
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 1:44 PM
To: Shalini Modi
Cc: eQUEST Mail list
Subject: Re: [Equest-users] infiltration levels

I would not input the ACH at 50 Pa into eQuest, as your infiltration will be incredibly huge (made mistake myself in the past).  The wizard has a good approximation for "average" buildings programed into it, and i recall it was around 0.038 cfm/sqft of exterior wall area.  We like to use exterior wall area rather than total ACH rate.  This usually works out to around 0.005 to 0.04 cfm/sqft of floor area, depending on the space and its exposure.

Hope this helps a little.  there are lots of documents online that can help further explain "normal" values to use in the model, which can then be translated into eQuest inputs later.

Rob
On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 1:27 PM, Shalini Modi <shalinimodi at msn.com<mailto:shalinimodi at msn.com>> wrote:
Dear all,

I would really appreciate some insight on infiltration with respect to eQUEST.

The air change rate of the building at a pressure difference of 50 Pa indicates the level of air tightness. eQUEST allows entering the number of infiltration caused air changes per hour at a reference speed of 4.47 m/s. In that case, do we just enter the ach at 50 Pa in eQUEST, then how does the wind factor effect? Am kind of confused.

Also, I would highly appreciate if anyone could share what are the ballpark infiltration levels in commercial (small) buildings in US and Canada.

Thanks,

Shalini

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--
Rob Hudson
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