Abstract
Ventilation is critical to healthy indoor environments. The World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that nine out of ten people on this planet breathe air with high levels of pollutants, resulting in seven million deaths every year. The US Environmental Protection Agency exposed that indoor levels of air pollutants may be as much as five times as high as outdoor levels. However, many modern office buildings are designed to be reliant on energy demanding and sometimes ineffective mechanical ventilation systems. The aim of this research is to understand the impact a natural ventilation retrofit will have on indoor air quality of a mechanically ventilated office building.
A quantitative experimental design was used in conjunction with a medical-grade indoor air quality monitor to capture the change in indoor air quality before and after openable windows were retrofitted to the office building. The research showed that retrofitting a mechanically ventilated office building with openable windows had a significant impact on indoor air quality and occupant well-being. After the openable windows were retrofitted and in use, indoor particulate matter (PM) 2.5 concentrations decreased by 22%. Indoor (PM) 10 concentrations decreased by 17%. Office hours in which CO2 exceeded 1000 parts per million were reduced from 36 office hours to 0. Recommendations include making use of an indoor air quality monitor as a first step to quantify the indoor air quality. For natural ventilation retrofits to be effective and have a return on investment, they must be holistically designed and include considerations such as building location, climate, wind patterns, outdoor air quality and occupant usage.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abouleish, M. Y. Z. (2020). Indoor air quality and coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Public Health.
Alatala, E. (2016) Enhancing the Building Performance of Low-Cost Schools in Pakistan – A Study of Natural Ventilation, Thermal Comfort and Moisture Safety [Online]. Chalmers University of Technology. Available from: https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/245948/245948.pdf
Asfour, O. S. (2017). Natural ventilation in buildings: An overview. Communications, 2(4), 14–23.
Azuma, K., Kagi, N., Yanagi, U., & Osawa, H. (2018). Effects of low-level inhalation exposure to carbon dioxide in indoor environments: A short review on human health and psychomotor performance. Environment International, 121, 51–56.
Braungardt, S., Bürger, V., Zieger, J., & Bosselaar, L. (2019). How to include cooling in the EU renewable energy directive? Strategies and policy implications. Energy Policy, 129, 260–267.
Brown, N. J. (2019). Indoor air quality [Electronic version]. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Workplace Health and Safety Program.
Budie, B., Appel-Meulenbroek, R., Kemperman, A., & Weijs-Perree, M. (2018). Employee satisfaction with the physical work environment: The importance of a need based approach. International Journal of Strategic Property Management, 23(1), 36–49.
Carrilho, G., & Linden, P. (2016). Ten questions about natural ventilation of non-domestic buildings. Building and Environment, 107, 263–273.
Chen, Y., Tong, Z., Samuelson, H., Wu, W., & Malkawi, A. (2019). Realizing natural ventilation potential through window control: The impact of occupant behavior. Energy Procedia, 158, 3215–3221.
Chloe. (2020). AirVisual Pro basic information. [Online] https://support.airvisual.com/en/articles/3029442-what-area-coverage-are-the-airvisual-pro-s-measurements-valid-for
Cincinelli, A., & Martellini, T. (2017). Indoor air quality and health. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(11), 1286.
Geng, Y., Ji, W., Wang, Z., Lin, B., & Zhu, Y. (2019). A review of operating performance in green buildings: Energy use, indoor environmental quality and occupant satisfaction. Energy and Buildings, 183, 500–514.
Khatami, N. (2014). Retrofitted natural ventilation systems for a lightweight office building. Loughborough University. Thesis. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/17820
Kim, J., & de Dear, R. (2013). Workspace satisfaction: The privacy-communication trade-off inopen-plan offices. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36, 18–26.
Marta, S., Canha, N., Lage, J., & Candeias, S. (2017). Indoor air quality during sleep under different ventilation patterns. Atmospheric Pollution Research, 8, 1132–1142.
Meng, X., Wang, Y., Xing, X., & Xu, Y. (2019). Experimental study on the performance of hybrid buoyancy-driven natural ventilation with a mechanical exhaust system in an industrial building. Energy & Buildings, 208, 109674.
Nag, P. K. (2019). Office buildings: Health, safety and environment. Springer.
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). (2020). Groups at higher risk for severe illness. [Online] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/groups-at-higher-risk.html
Park, J., Loftness, V., Aziz, A., & Wang, T. H. (2019). Critical factors and thresholds for user satisfaction on air quality in office environments. Building and Environment, 164, 106310.
Tong, Z., Chen, Y., Malkawi, A., Liu, Z., & Freeman, R. B. (2016). Energy saving potential of natural ventilation in China: The impact of ambient air pollution. Applied Energy, 179, 660–668.
Wang, B. (2017). Design-based natural ventilation evaluation in early stage for high performance buildings. Sustainable Cities and Society. 45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2018.11.024
Wang, R., Zhai, X. (2018) Handbook of energy systems in green buildings (R Wang and X Zhaieds). Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
Weerasuriya, A. U., Zhang, X., Gan, V. J. L., & Tan, Y. (2019). A holistic framework to utilize natural ventilation to optimize energy performance of residential high-rise buildings. Building and Environment, 153, 218–232.
Yuan, S., Vallianos, C., Athienitis, A., & Rao, J. (2018). A study of hybrid ventilation in an institutional building for predictive control. Building and Environment, 128, 1–11.
Zhai, Z. J., & Helman, J. M. (2019). Implications of climate changes to building energy and design. Sustainable Cities and Society, 44, 511–519.
Zhai, Y., Honnekeri, A., Pigman, M., Fountain, M., Zhang, H., Zhou, X., & Arens, E. (2019). Energy and buildings use of adaptive control and its effects on human comfort in a naturally ventilated office in Alameda, California. Energy & Buildings, 203, 109435.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Manga, A., Allen, C. (2022). Implications of a Natural Ventilation Retrofit of an Office Building. In: Gorse, C., Scott, L., Booth, C., Dastbaz, M. (eds) Climate Emergency – Managing, Building , and Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79450-7_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79450-7_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-79449-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-79450-7
eBook Packages: EnergyEnergy (R0)