Analysis of Various Ventilation Solutions for Residential and Non-residential Buildings in Latvia and Estonia

As the newly built and renovated buildings consume less energy for heating needs, due to better and thicker insulation, the relative energy consumption for ventilation increases. This leads to necessity for increased effectiveness of ventilation systems, but such systems are more expensive in installation therefore the most economically feasible solution must be found in each case. A specific attention should be paid to such unclassified buildings as dormitories and barracks where occupancy profile and density differs from residential buildings which are already widely analyzed. This paper presents study results of cost analysis for different ventilation strategies for case study multi-story apartment building in Latvia and Estonia. The compared ventilation strategies include natural ventilation through windows, natural ventilation by having inlet valves with natural exhaust, hybrid ventilation with inlet devices in walls and mechanical exhaust, decentralized mechanical ventilation with room based heat recovery, decentralized mechanical ventilation with apartment based heat recovery and building based centralized ventilation system. For each of these system types installation costs are estimated, based on necessary equipment and actual market prices. Afterwards annual running and maintenance costs are calculated and obtained data compared to select the optimal solution. The results show that the most cost effective system in longer time period is centralized ventilation system which serves whole staircase. Although the simpler solutions like natural or hybrid ventilation systems with air inlets through walls and mechanical exhausts are initially cheaper the energy costs to heat up the incoming air are high and therefore cost inefficient in longer time period.