Indoor Environment in ZEB Living Lab

Abstract

This master thesis assesses the indoor environment in Living Lab, a zero emission residential building built in order to investigate ZEB-strategies. The living laboratory located at Gløshaugen campus is also an arena for study of ventilative cooling, where the aim is to exploit the cooling effect of outdoor air. Excessive heat and overheating during summer and shoulder seasons is a known problem for new modern super insulated buildings, and actions to remove this heat is required. Ventilative cooling is of interest as it can lower the building s cooling demand, thus reducing its energy need. In order to obtain knowledge about ventilative cooling and indoor environment, findings about relevant theory and research, and study of existing buildings with ventilative cooling have been examined. Furthermore, change of thermal environment during natural ventilation activity in Living Lab is also been assessed, by performance of thermal comfort measurements. Research and articles on ventilation cooling shows that it is possible to obtain acceptable indoor temperature, even on warm summer days but this requires additional actions as window shading, use of thermal mass and intelligent control system. Draught measurements show that feeling of draught is present when performing window airing in Living Lab. The master is connected to the NTNU-SINTEF Zero Emission Building (ZEB) research activity.