hvac

HVAC (pronounced either "H-V-A-C" or, occasionally, "H-VAK") is an initialism/acronym that stands for "heating, ventilating, and air conditioning". This is sometimes referred to as climate control.

These three functions are closely interrelated. In addition, they provide smoke control, maintain pressure relationships between spaces, and provide fresh air for occupants. In modern building designs, the design, installation, and control systems of these functions are integrated into a single "HVAC" system.

In certain regions (e.g., UK), the term "Building Services" is also used and HVAC Engineers are called Building Services Engineers. See CIBSE.

The term air handler can mean a whole unit, including the blower, heating, and cooling elements, filter racks or chamber and dampers. This does not include the ductwork through the building.

Heating

Heating systems may be classified as central or local.

Central heating

Main article: Central heating

Central heating is often used in cold climates to heat private houses and public buildings. Such a system contains a boiler, furnace, or heat pump to heat water, steam, or air, all in a central location such as a furnace room in a home or a mechanical room in a large building. The system also contains piping or ductwork to distribute the heated fluid, and radiators to transfer this heat to the air. The term radiator in this context is misleading, since most heat transfer from the heat exchanger is by convection, not radiation. The radiators may be mounted on walls, or buried in the floor to give under-floor heating. When so mounted, it is often referred to as "radiant heating."

All but the simplest systems have a pump to circulate the water and ensure an equal supply of heat to all the radiators. The heated water is often fed through another heat exchanger inside a storage cylinder to provide hot running water.

Forced air systems send air through ductwork. During warm weather, the same ductwork can be reused for air conditioning. The forced air can be filtered or put through air cleaners. Contrary to fiction, most ducts cannot fit a human being as this would require a greater duct-structural integrity and create a potential security liability.

The heating elements (radiators or vents) should be located in the coldest part of the room, and typically next to the windows to minimize condensation. Popular retail devices that direct vents away from windows -- to prevent "wasted" heat -- defeat this design parameter. Drafts contribute more to the subjective feeling of coldness than actual room temperature. Thus, rather than improving the heating of a room/building, it is often more important to control the air leaks.

The invention of central heating is often credited to the ancient Romans, who installed a system of air ducts in walls and floors of public baths and private villas. The ducts were fed with hot air from a central fire.

Energy Efficiency

Water heating is more efficient for heating buildings and was the standard many years ago. Today, forced air systems can double for air conditioning, and are more popular. The most efficient central heating method is geothermal heating.

Energy efficiency can be improved even more in central heating systems by introducing zoned heating. This allows a more granular application of heat, similar to non-central heating systems. Zones are controlled by multiple thermostats. In water heating systems, the thermostats control zone valves, and in forced air systems, they control zone dampers inside the vents which selectively block the flow of air.

Ventilation

Ventilation is the changing of air in any space to remove moisture, odors, smoke, heat, and airborne bacteria. Ventilation includes both the exchange of air to the outside as well as circulation of air within the building. It is one of the most important factors for maintaining healthy indoor air quality in a building. Methods for ventilating a building may be divided into natural and forced types.

Natural ventilation

Natural ventilation is the ventilation of a building with outside air without the use of a fan or other mechanical system. It can be achieved with operable windows when the spaces to ventilate are small and the architecture permits. In more complex systems, warm air in the building can be allowed to rise and flow out upper openings to the outside (stack effect) thus forcing fresh cool air to be drawn into the building naturally though openings in the lower areas. These systems use very little energy but care must be taken to ensure the occupants' comfort. The natural ventilation flow rate can be calculated with this equation:^[1]

U.S. customary units:

where:
QS	= Stack vent airflow rate, ft³/s
A	= cross-sectional area of opening, ft² (assumes equal area for inlet and outlet)
Cd	= Discharge coefficient for opening
g	= gravitational acceleration, 32.17 ft/s²
Hd	= Height from midpoint of lower opening to neutral pressure level (NPL), ft
NPL	= location/s in the building envelope with no pressure difference between inside and outside       (ASHRAE 2001, p.26.11)
TI	= Average indoor temperature between the inlet and outlet, °R
TO	= Outdoor temperature, °R

SI units:

where:
QS	= Stack vent airflow rate, m³/s
A	= cross-sectional area of opening, m² (assumes equal area for inlet and outlet)
Cd	= Discharge coefficient for opening
g	= gravitational acceleration, 9.807 m/s²
Hd	= Height from midpoint of lower opening to neutral pressure level (NPL), m
NPL	= location/s in the building envelope with no pressure difference between inside and outside       (ASHRAE 2001, p.26.11)
TI	= Average indoor temperature between the inlet and outlet, K
TO	= Outdoor temperature, K

Forced ventilation

Forced ventilation may be used to control humidity or odors. Kitchens and bathrooms typically have mechanical ventilation to control both. Factors in the design of such systems include the flow rate (which is a function of the fan speed and exhaust vent size) and noise level. If the ducting for the fans traverse unheated space (e.g. an attic), the ducting should be insulated as well to prevent condensation on the ducting. Direct drive fans are available for many applications (these save the owner the costs of maintaining/replacing drive belts).

Heat recovery ventilation systems employ heat exchangers to bring the fresh air temperature to room temperature.

Ceiling fans and table/floor fans are very effective in circulating the air in the room. Paradoxically, because heat rises ceiling fans may be used to keep a room warmer.

Displacement ventilation

Airflow in ventilated spaces generally can be classified by two different types: mixing (or dilution) ventilation and displacement ventilation.

Mixing ventilation systems generally supply air in a manner that the air in the entire room is fully mixed. The cool supply air exits the outlet at high velocity, inducing room air to provide mixing and temperature equalization. Since the entire room is fully mixed, temperature variations are small while the contaminant concentration is uniform throughout the entire room.

Displacement-ventilation systems introduce air at low velocities which causes minimal induction and mixing. The displacement outlets are usually located at or near the floor. The system utilizes buoyancy forces (generated by heat sources such as people, lighting, computers, electrical equipment, etc.) in a room to move contaminants and heat from the occupied zone. By so doing, the air quality in the occupied zone is generally superior to that achieved with mixing ventilation.

Displacement ventilation presents an opportunity to improve both the thermal comfort and indoor air quality (IAQ) of the occupied space. It also takes advantage of the difference in air density between an upper contaminated zone and a lower clean zone. Cool air is supplied at low velocity into the lower zone. Convection from heat sources creates vertical air motion into the upper zone where high level return outlets extract the air. In most cases, these convection heat sources are also the contamination sources, i.e. people or equipment, thereby carrying the contaminants up to the upper zone, away from the occupants.

Outlets are typically located at or near the floor level, and air is supplied directly into the occupied zone. This supply air is spread over the entire floor and then rises as it is heated by the heat sources in the occupied zone. Returns are typically located at or close to the ceiling and exhaust the warm contaminated air.

Since the conditioned air is supplied directly into the occupied space, supply air temperatures must be higher than mixing systems (usually above 63 °F) to avoid cool temperatures at the floor. By introducing the air at elevated supply air temperatures and low outlet velocity, a high level of thermal comfort can be provided with displacement ventilation.

Ventilation issues in houses

Proper ventilation in the attic:

• Keeps the house cool in the summer. (Attics radiate heat downward in the summer when they are hotter than the living area.)
• Keeps the attic cold in the winter, which can prevent ice dams.
• Allows moisture to escape from the house. Some warm, moist air will always find its way into the attic, so ventilation is essential. This is important year-round, for preventing mold and rot, but it is especially important in the winter, when the moisture is more likely to condense.

Be aware that increased ventilation decreases the effectiveness of any insulation that is a poor barrier to air infiltration, such as fiberglass batts. The increased ventilation will create low pressure areas, so that the house will push conditioned air through the insulation faster than it normally would.

With insufficient ventilation:

• Attic heat can penetrate into living areas during summer.
• There will be excessive humidity, which can cause mold and eventually rot.
• Water vapor can condense and collect on insulation, on rafters, and on the underside of roof sheathing. This will reduce the effectiveness of the insulation, and can greatly hasten the activity of mold and rot.
• Condensation and mold will also occur in the living area, especially on perimeter walls (because they are coolest) and where ventilation is poorest, such as in corners and around furniture.

You will need more ventilation than usual if:

• You live in a damp climate.
• Your house is in the shade.
• The crawlspace or basement has a dirt floor.
• There isn't much wind.
• You have a modern, super-tight house.
• You have a solid masonry house.
• You have a house with impermeable siding such as vinyl or aluminum.
• You do not have sufficient (or any) vapor barriers.

Most houses treat the attic and basement as unconditioned space. You can think of unconditioned space as outdoor space, minus the rain and snow. The unconditioned space surrounding the living area shouldn’t be wide open, but it shouldn't be sealed shut either. A good compromise is to have two foundation vents in the basement and two different types of vents in the attic. Vents should always exist in pairs (but not necessarily two of the same type) to allow for cross-ventilation. In an attic, one member of the pair should be low on the roof, and the other member should be higher up, so that outside air is pulled through one and out the other. Natural attic ventilation through these vents is usually sufficient. Powered vents in the attic may interfere with proper furnace and fireplace venting.

Some ways to ventilate an attic naturally:

• Soffit vents.
• Ridge vents (you can cover the ridge vent with shingles).
• Gable vents.

Modern homes often incorporate all three types of attic vents, providing continuous cross-ventilation via multiple air pathways.

Make sure gable vents have screens to keep out insects and animals, and keep the screens clean to maintain proper ventilation.

Never close or block off the vents to a damp basement or crawlspace, except in extreme cold to prevent pipes from freezing. Closing the vents to a damp basement or crawlspace will cause mold, rot, and structural defects. Sometimes, a basement or crawlspace will look bone dry, but is transpiring moisture through the dirt floor at a rapid rate. To see if this is the case, lay down some clear plastic on the dirt floor for a few days and observe how much water collects on its underside.

If your basement or crawlspace is dry and has been dry for several years, you can:

• Close the foundation vents in the winter to conserve energy, and open them again in the warmer months, to allow interior moisture from the house to escape.
• Close the foundation vents permanently, install a polyethylene vapor barrier on the floor (just to be safe), insulate the basement or crawlspace walls, and part of the floor, if necessary, and include the basement or crawlspace as part of the conditioned space of the house. If you take this route, you don’t need to insulate the floor above the basement or crawlspace, but it doesn’t hurt if the floor is already insulated. Keep an eye on humidity. There will be less condensation on walls and pipes, but possibly greater humidity because of trapped air, requiring increased ventilation in the upper floors and attic to compensate.

Advantages of insulating a dry basement and crawlspace and making them part of the conditioned space of the house:

• Decreased condensation, because walls are closer in temperature to the air inside the house, and because cold pipes are not exposed to outdoor air during the warmer months.
• Reduced energy losses from ducts passing through the basement.
• Reduced risk of pipes freezing in winter.

Ventilation Issues In Commercial and Industrial Buildings

Boiler And Equipment Rooms

To provide security and fresh air cooling, some buildings have two sets of overhead doors in hot boiler and equipment rooms. The second set of doors are custom-made grills with bird screens (similar to the security grills used by some stores at indoor shopping malls). Some of the custom grills have solid slats in the lowest 3' section, to reduce the amount of trash that might blow into the rooms. During hot weather, the grills secure the opening while the solid doors are fully open. During cool and cold weather, the solid doors can be partially or fully closed.

Residential Ventilation checklist:

• Vent sources of moisture directly to the outside. This is especially important for the bathroom, which normally produces more moisture than any other room in the house, and for the dryer, which produces more moisture than any other appliance.
• Do not vent moisture directly into the attic. The last thing you want to do is put warm, moist air into the attic. In cold climates this can contribute to icing and resulting leaks.
• A whole-house fan is acceptable because of its usual location, installed in the attic floor near a gable vent, and because it is not directly connected to a source of moisture. The whole-house fan can help to remove cooking odors and can cool the entire house when it is not hot enough to turn on the air conditioning. Use caution: natural-draft heating appliances could be adversely affected by too much exhaust - products of combustion could be drawn into the house.
• If you cannot vent the bathroom directly to the outside, install the vent up through the attic and down through a soffit vent. This will prevent water from dripping back down into the vent as it would if you installed the duct straight up through the roof. Wire the bathroom vent to a timer switch, so that people can turn it on without having to remember to turn it off.
• Always vent the clothes dryer to the outside with a smooth-walled (do not screw into walls of duct), metal (not plastic) duct that is as short as possible. To prevent a house fire, check the duct for clogs regularly. Do not vent the dryer directly into the laundry room. This puts much too much moisture into the house.
• Kitchens should have a vent hood with an exhaust fan. The vent hood should have a back draft flap to keep out insects and cold air - but some cold air will inevitably seep in.
• Install ceiling fans to improve ventilation and distribute heat. To disperse heat properly, run the ceiling fan in reverse, so that it pushes warm air up against the ceiling and down along the walls, where people tend to sit.
• Do not block air intake vents for heating or air conditioning equipment. Blocking these vents will starve the equipment for air, causing it to run inefficiently.
• If your unfinished basement has windows, keep them closed on hot, humid days to prevent moisture from condensing on the walls continuously, all day long. Open the windows once the humidity drops below the natural humidity of the basement, so that moisture doesn’t build up inside.
• People, in their zeal to do a good job, sometimes pack insulation into the eaves, blocking the soffit vents, because they don’t know that the vents exist or don’t know what they are for. If you are installing insulation in the attic for the first time, do not cover the soffit vents with insulation.
• If your attic is already insulated on the floor, make sure insulation is not blocking the soffit vents. This is more of a problem for loose-fill, since wind can scatter the fill around. To prevent loose-fill from scattering and covering the soffit vents, you can install baffles between the rafters. You staple the baffles to the underside of the roof sheathing, and the baffles maintain 2 inches of ventilation space next to the sheathing.
• Wind coming through soffit vents can also push batt insulation up off the floor, causing cold airflow against the ceiling and cold spots high up on exterior walls. Baffles installed near the eave should also prevent this problem, by keeping the batts from flipping up and over.
• If you are going to install batts or spray foam between the rafters, you should extend the baffles all the way up to the ridge vent. This will keep the sheathing dry and prevent it from rotting invisibly behind the insulation.
• Likewise, when you insulate between the floor joists in the ceiling of an unconditioned basement or crawlspace, you should leave some space between the insulation and the sheathing (subfloor) to allow water vapor to escape.

Ventilation Services

NOTE: The information in this section applies only to the United Kingdom

Building Services is a construction body that covers the essential services that allow buildings to operate. It includes the electrotechnical, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, refrigeration and plumbing industries.

Building Services is part of a sector that has over 51,000 businesses and employs over 500,00 people. This sector has an annual turnover of £19.3 billion which represents 2%-3% of the GDP.

Within the construction sector, it is the job of the building services engineer to design, install and maintain the essential services such as gas, electricity, water, heating and lighting, as well as many others. These all help to make buildings comfortable and healthy places to live and work in.

To train as a building services engineer, the academic requirement is GCSEs (A-C) / Standard Grades (1-3) in Maths and Science, which are important in measurements, planning and theory. Employers will often want a degree in a branch of engineering, such as building environment engineering, electrical engineering or mechanical engineering.

Air-conditioning

(For more information, see Air conditioners)

An air-conditioning system provides heating, cooling, ventilation, and humidity control for a building. It is often installed in modern offices and public buildings, but is difficult to retrofit (install in a building that was not designed to receive it) because of the bulky air ducts required. A duct system must be carefully maintained to prevent the growth of pathogenic bacteria in the ducts. The alternative to large ducts to carry the needed air to heat or cool an area is the use of remote coils or split systems. These systems, although most often seen in residential application, are gaining popularity in commercial buildings. The remote coil is connected to a remote condenser unit using piping instead of ducts. The units usually have a fan to move air across the coil, although recent innovations have seen static units installed in some large office spaces.

A dehumidifier is an air-conditioning-like device that controls the humidity of a room or building. They are deployed in basements, which have a higher relative humidity because of their lower temperature (and propensity for damp floor and walls). In food retailing establishments, large open chiller cabinets are highly effective at dehumidifing the internal air. (Conversely, a humidifier increases the humidity of a building.)

Air-conditioned buildings often have sealed windows, because open windows would disrupt the attempts of the control system to maintain constant air quality.

Air conditioner efficiency ratings

For residential homes, some countries set minimum requirements for the energy efficiency of air conditioners. The efficiency of air conditioners are often (but not always) rated by the Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER). The higher the SEER rating, the more energy efficient is the air conditioner. The SEER rating is the Btu of cooling output during its normal annual usage divided by the total electric energy input in watt-hours (W·h) during the same period. ^[2]

SEER = BTU ÷ W·h

For example, a 5000 Btu/h air-conditioning unit, with a SEER of 10, operating for a total of 1000 hours during an annual cooling season (i.e., 8 hours per day for 125 days) would provide an annual total cooling output of:

5000 Btu/h × 1000 h = 5,000,000 Btu

which, for a SEER of 10, would be an annual electrical energy usage of:

5,000,000 Btu ÷ 10 = 500,000 W·h

and that is equivalent to an average power usage during the cooling season of:

500,000 W·h ÷ 1000 h = 500 W

SEER is related to the coefficient of performance (COP) commonly used in thermodynamics and also to the Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER). The EER is the efficiency rating for the equipment at a particular pair of external and internal temperatures, while SEER is calculated over a whole range of external temperatures (i.e., the temperature distribution for the geographical location of the SEER test). The COP is different in that it is a unitless parameter. Formulas for the approximate conversion between SEER and EER or COP are available from the Pacific Gas and Electric company in California:^[3]

(1)     SEER = EER ÷ 0.9

(2)     SEER = COP x 3.792

(3)     EER = COP x 3.413

From equation (2) above, a SEER of 13 is equivalent to a COP of 3.43, which means that 3.43 units of heat energy are pumped per unit of work energy.

Today, it is rare to see systems rated below SEER 9 in the United States, since older units are being replaced with higher efficiency units. The United States now requires that residental systems manufactured in 2006 have a minimum SEER rating of 13 (although window-box systems are exempt from this law, so their SEER is still around 10).^[4] Substantial energy savings can be obtained from more efficient systems. For example, by upgrading from SEER 9 to SEER 13, the power consumption is reduced by 30% (equal to 1 - 9/13). It is claimed that this can result in an energy savings valued at up to $US 300 per year (depending on the usage rate and the cost of electricity). In many cases, the lifetime energy savings is likely to surpass the higher initial cost of a high-efficiency unit.

As an example, the annual cost of electric power consumed by a 72,000 BTU/h air conditioning unit operating for 1000 hours per year with a SEER rating of 10 and a power cost of $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (kW·h) may be calculated as follows:

unit size, BTU/h × hours per year, h × power cost, $/kW·h ÷ SEER, BTU/W·h ÷ 1000 W/kW

(72,000 BTU/h) × (1000 h) × ($0.12/kW·h) ÷ (10 BTU/W·h) ÷ (1000 W/kW)= $864.00 annual cost

Air conditioner sizes are often given as "tons" of cooling. Multiplying the tons of cooling by 12,000 converts it to BTU/h.

See also

• Air conditioning
• Air filter
• American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)
• Boiler
• Building construction
• CIBSE Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers
• Domotics
• HVAC control systems
  • BACnet -- A network protocol used for Building Automation Control
  • LonWorks -- A competing network protocol used for Building Automation Control
• Building Indoor Environment
• Noise mitigation
• Radiator
• Refrigeration
• Solar energy
• Stack effect
• Underfloor heating
• Vapor-compression refrigeration
• Ventilation

References

1. ^ Natural Ventilation Lecture (scroll to section 3.3)
2. ^ Definition of SEER (scroll down to "Seasonal energy efficiency ratio")
3. ^ SEER conversion formulas from Pacific Gas and Electric
4. ^ Minimum SEER ratings required in the US

External links

• Complete HVAC Visual Training
• The UK Selfbuild FAQ
• The effects of displacement ventilation
• Natural Ventilation - by Andy Walker of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
• IEA Energy Conservation in Buildings and Community Systems Programme.
• BTU Calculator A worksheet by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers to help you estimate how much cooling capacity you need.
• Online Air-Conditioning HVAC Calculator