NIST infiltration tools for commercial buildings

Lisa Ng, W. Stuart Dols, Som Shrestha, Steven J. Emmerich, Brian Polidoro

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

The Department of Energy estimates that infiltration through building envelopes accounted for 6 % of the total energy consumed by commercial buildings and 21 % of the heating and cooling energy. Air barrier requirements are now being included in ASHRAE Standards 90.1 and 189.1 and other construction requirements. The energy impacts of unintended infiltration on building energy use can be significant, but current energy simulation software and design methods are generally not able to accurately account for envelope infiltration and the impacts of improved airtightness. NIST has been developing tools to better account for infiltration in building energy models. The tools that will be discussed in this paper include: CONTAM Results Export Tool; weather-correlated infiltration inputs for prototype commercial buildings and the associated Open Studio Measures; and a web-based tool to evaluate the energy savings of building envelope airtightening, which was developed with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Air Barrier Association of America. This paper briefly describes each tool, their applications, and the benefits of using each. All of the tools are publicly available at no cost.

Original languageEnglish
JournalThermal Performance of the Exterior Envelopes of Whole Buildings
StatePublished - 2019
Event14th International Conference on Thermal Performance of the Exterior Envelopes of Whole Buildings 2019 - Clearwater, United States
Duration: Dec 9 2019Dec 12 2019

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