Spain. The Institución Ferial de Madrid (Ifema) recently published a study for the measurement and assessment of the impact on the user's expectations of almost zero/passive consumption buildings, adaptation of their habits and social perception of the change in the building.
One of the results of the study showed that 57.92% of users identify a cause-and-effect relationship between health and household conditions. It is a high percentage, but relatively low in relation to the dimension of the Question (what relationship does it establish between your health and well-being and the house in which you now live?), that is, there is still a very high percentage, 42.07%, who are not sure or who, directly does not relate it.
The analysis detects that the climate is the element that governs the relationship between the user and the space he inhabits. It is, therefore, one of the factors that most affects the feeling of comfort. The challenge of nearly zero-energy buildings is to establish a more balanced relationship between what the user asks of their home and what their home can do.
According to the results, the user constantly intervenes in the house to feel comfort; opens and closes windows, cools and heats according to the interior temperature, gets used to certain noises on the premises, etc., has the feeling that if you do not act actively, the house does not respond.
The ECCN (Nearly Zero Consumption Buildings) pose a new scenario for the inhabitants since passive housing works permanently without the need for user intervention to achieve a comfortable temperature.
Another part of the study explains that the vast majority of people ventilate their homes every day because they relate this action to greater well-being and comfort. Even so, the study shows that it is difficult to discern between ventilation (air quality) and temperature (cold /heat).
In a conventional building, air quality is achieved through the opening of windows, while comfort temperature is achieved through conventional air systems.
On the contrary, in the ECCN, a different logic is used: the air quality is achieved with ventilation systems with heat recovery and the comfort temperature is given by the use of passive enclosures-insulation.
76.27% of users open windows to ventilate and achieve healthy indoor air. It is therefore important to reinforce the idea that natural ventilation can also be done through mechanical ventilation systems (CMVs) and that the latter are not only more environmentally friendly – since by not opening windows there are no thermal oscillations and, consequently, energy expenditure - if not more efficient and healthy.
This paradigm shift, which consists of understanding a mechanical system as something natural and reliable, is one of the important challenges that the ECCN construction sector must face.
Source: www.construible.es
