Trends in hybrid ventilation
With the Net Zero 2050 target edging closer and driving energy efficient solutions, as well as an increased focus on health and legislation, building services consultants have a raft of boxes to tick. Matt Cooper, Business Development Director at Breathing Buildings, discusses the latest trends and how hybrid ventilation technology alongside expert technical support offers an ideal low carbon solution.
The way buildings are designed and operated is undergoing a major shift. To improve energy efficiency, buildings are becoming more airtight, yet this presents new challenges in maintaining good indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort. At the same time, persistently high energy costs are driving end-users to look for solutions that deliver long-term savings without compromising occupant wellbeing.
Nowhere is this challenge more evident than in the education sector, where funding constraints have historically hindered infrastructure improvements. However, in the last Budget the government committed to an additional £1.4 billion towards the School Rebuilding Programme, with 100 rebuilding projects starting next year. In addition, there was also a further £2.1 billion earmarked to maintain and improve school buildings, an increase of £300 million from the previous year.
This funding presents a critical opportunity to integrate low carbon, high efficiency ventilation solutions into both new and refurbished school buildings, enhancing health, sustainability and energy performance.
School ventilation trends
The ventilation industry is currently experiencing a good mix of new build and retrofit school projects. A new trend is an increase in extensions with a raft of school expansions and upgrades that often involve a blend of new construction and refurbishments on a single site, and an increasing number of modular classrooms. Here hybrid ventilation units provide an adaptable solution, where there is a need to relocate units in existing buildings due to change of use, allowing schools to repurpose ventilation systems rather than replacing them, reducing both costs and environmental impact.
Another key trend is the rising demand for ventilation servicing. Ensuring a healthy learning environment is a top priority for schools since research has shown ventilation increases the chances of better academic results, better attendance and concentration, yet past funding constraints have often sidelined servicing and maintenance. With increased financial support now available, schools are investing in improved IAQ and energy efficiency. Effective servicing not only optimises IAQ, but also enhances the ventilation unit’s efficiency. When specifying ventilation consultants should consider ventilation solutions that offer easy maintenance and access to core components.
Why hybrid ventilation?
Despite increased funding schools are still cost sensitive. With high UK energy prices this sensitivity is felt across the commercial building sector. Since energy prices are unlikely to decrease significantly, long-term operational costs are critical to the ventilation decision-making process. Hybrid ventilation, which uses both natural ventilation and mechanical ventilation in one system design,
is an ideal solution for commercial buildings with high heat gains, such as schools, colleges, leisure centres, offices, theatres and even churches. Hybrid ventilation is highly efficient and harnesses free heat (and so energy) that has already built up within a space. By installing hybrid ventilation, commercial buildings can maximise health, comfort and sustainability without having to invest in significant building works, making it ideal for retrofitting.
A new development in hybrid ventilation is the addition of a low resistance heat exchanger cell, providing both heat recycling and heat recovery thereby reclaiming even more heat, saving more energy, providing greater occupant comfort and allowing users to include it within the building energy assessments (SBEM). Breathing Buildings’ Natural Ventilation with Heat Recycling and Heat Recovery (NVHRe) combines 46% heat recovery efficiency
with low Specific Fan Power (SFP) of 0.075 W/l/s to help maximise a building’s energy savings. In addition, the NVHRe has several different operating modes to minimise energy use, enhance IAQ and improve occupant comfort.
An intelligent hybrid system, the unit automatically decides when and if mechanical operation is required, ensuring it only operates when absolutely necessary.
By incorporating a low resistance aluminium cross-plate heat exchanger, the NVHRe system significantly reduces energy costs by minimising reliance on space heating. The system operates in colder temperatures (below 7oC), when mixing recycled air alone is not enough, to maintain the desired temperature for occupants.
Comprehensive ventilation solutions
Certain environments, such as landlocked rooms or spaces requiring fixed extract rates, require mechanical ventilation. Air Quality Management Areas, where air pollution levels are higher than the national air quality objectives, also require mechanical ventilation and require higher levels of filtration.
Indoor environmental quality
With IAQ remaining a critical focus, in a bid for healthier buildings, designers are increasingly focusing on indoor environmental quality (IEQ), which encompasses factors such as thermal comfort, lighting, noise levels and air quality. Ventilation systems must contribute holistically to these factors, such as including a heating coil that provides heating and is ready for a heat pump installation, or a system that features both heating and cooling for year-round comfort and full temperature control. This approach can go a long way towards eliminating the need for additional space heating or cooling.
Sustainability
As the drive towards Net Zero accelerates, consultants and clients are demanding greater transparency in embodied carbon data. This data is important to be able to compare technology and ensure carbon is as low as possible. Breathing Buildings has adopted the CIBSE TM65 methodology for collecting product data and has completed these evaluations for all its ventilation units, allowing specifiers to accurately evaluate their environmental impact.
Design’s critical role
As the efficiency of ventilation products reaches its pinnacle the importance of good ventilation design has become crucial so end-users can benefit from the additional efficiency gains of a well designed system. Building services consultants must navigate a complex regulatory landscape, with new and evolving legislation including the Building Safety
Act, Part F and Part L, driving compliance requirements. With Net Zero targets fast approaching, achieving superior IAQ, energy efficiency and thermal comfort through effective ventilation design has never been more crucial. At Breathing Buildings, we offer the expertise and solutions to help consultants meet these challenges head-on.
