Investigation of the Indoor Environment in a Passive House Apartment Building Heated by Ventilation Air

Experience has shown that appropriate design of very low energy dwellings can be a large challenge and that the final design may result in insufficient heating in winter and overheating in summer. The 126 certified Passive House apartments (Ravnsborghusene) in Køge, Denmark are a low energy building project finished medio 2012.

The design challenge was met with a concept of air heating that is individually controlled in every room. It also applies external solar shading. This study used indoor climate measurements and dynamic simulations in one of these apartment buildings to evaluate thermal comfort and the performance of the air heating system and solar shading.

Thermal comfort category B according to ISO 7730 was obtained in the building during field measurements, indicating that the air heating system was able to maintain comfort conditions in winter, when the outdoor temperature had been unusual low for a longer period. The dynamic simulations also indicated that air heating during winter can provide a comfortable thermal environment.

Dynamic simulations also demonstrated that during summer, apartments with automatic external solar screens had no serious overheating, whereas in apartments with south oriented windows, static shadings by the balcony overhangs and low ventilation rates, resulted in excessive hours of overheating.