- Author
- Persily, A. K. | Gorfain, J. | Brunner, G.
- Title
- Ventilation Rates in U.S. Office Buildings From the EPA Base Study.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC
- Sponsor
- Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC
- Book or Conf
- Indoor Air Quality and Climate, 10th International Conference. Indoor Air 2005. Proceedings. September 4-9, 2005, Beijing, China, 917-921 p., 2005
- Keywords
- ventilation | office buildings | carbon dioxide | databases | standards | ducts | equations
- Identifiers
- EPA BASE study; summary of measured outdoor air ventilatin rates
- Abstract
- The EPA BASE study involved indoor environmental measurements in 100 U.S. office buildings. This paper presents an analysis of the measured outdoor air ventilation rates, including comparisons with the requirements in ASHRAE Standard 62. The outdoor ventilation rates measured using duct traverses at the air handler intakes are higher than might be expected, with a mean value of about 55 L/s per person. However, these elevated values are not so unexpected given the low occupant density (mean of about 4 persons per 100 m2) and the high outdoor air fractions (mean of about 35%). Air change rates based on peak carbon dioxide concentrations in the space are lower than the volumetric values with a mean of about 20 L/s per person. Questions exist regarding the reliability of these peak CO2 values based on the validity of the assumptions on which the determinations are based.