TightVent Europe

TightVent Europe logo

TightVent Europe is a platform, formed in January 2011, with a focus on building and ductwork airtightness issues.[1] The creation of the platform was triggered by the need for a strong and concerted initiative to meet the Directive on the energy performance of buildings recast’s ambitious targets for the year 2020 [2] and overcome the challenges in relation to the envelope and ductwork leakage towards the generalization of nearly zero-energy buildings.[3] The platform’s main activities, among others, include the production and dissemination of policy oriented publications, networking among local or national airtightness associations, as well as the organization of conferences, workshops and webinars.[4]

History

TightVent Europe was launched and initiated in January 2011 by INIVE EEIG (International Network for Information on Ventilation and Energy Performance), a registered European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG) whose members include building research centres in Europe.[5] Since then, the platform has received the financial and/or technical support from its partners: Buildings Performance Institute Europe, BlowerDoor GmbH, Eurima, Lindab, Retrotec, Soudal, Wienerberger and Industrias Gonal.

Target Audience

The target audience of the TightVent Europe activities ranges from the research community over designers, practitioners, supply industry to European, national and regional government policy makers.[4][5] It includes policy makers, training centres, designers, engineers and builders, air leakage testers, local and national airtightness associations, research and technical centres.[4][5]

TightVent Airtightness Associations Committee-TAAC

In September 2012, TightVent Europe launched the TightVent Airtightness Associations Committee (TightVent TAAC committee) with the primary goal to promote reliable testing and reporting procedures.[6][7][8] At present, the participants are from Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Sweden, UK and the US.[8] The scope of this committees includes various aspects such as:

Publications

Since 2011, TightVent Europe has published 6 reports [9] in the fields of building and ductwork airtightness. The first publication on the challenges for building and ductwork airtightness was released in 2011 entitled as: “Critical steps for a wide scale implementation of building and ductwork airtightness”.[10] It included an introductory paper browsing the issues of concern and collect a series of technical documents, namely those produced within the ASIEPI project as well as within the SAVE-DUCT and AIRWAYS projects.[4] Another publication: “Methods and techniques for airtight buildings” was released in 2012, with an overview to the design principles and construction methods for building airtightness.[11] Moreover, the publication: "Building air leakage databases in energy conservation policies: Analysis of selected initiatives in 4 European countries and the USA"[12] was also released in 2012 with information on existing envelope air leakage databases from five countries: Czech Republic, France, Germany, UK and USA. Furthermore,another report was produced in close collaboration with the AIVC, "Building airtightness: a critical review of testing reporting and quality schemes in 10 countries",[13] in 2012; a review of testing and reporting about building airtightness and quality management issues for achieving a good airtightness in 10 countries.In 2013, TightVent Europe published "Building and ductwork airtightness: Selected papers from the REHVA special journal issue on ‘airtightness’" [14] composed of relevant contributions from the special issue on airtightness of the REHVA journal.[15]

Newsletter

TightVent Europe publishes a biannual newsletter with up to date information on developments in respect to building and ductwork airtightness, including policy issues, publications, events, innovative technologies, case studies and research activities.[3]

Events

Annual Conference Since 2011, TightVent Europe holds a joint annual conference together with the Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre in September/October in one of the AIVC participating countries, with a track devoted to building and ductwork airtightness.[16][17][18][19]

Workshops & Webinars Besides the publications and conferences TightVent Europe key activities include the organization of workshops and webinars.[1] Some of the webinars are targeted at a specific region, some at the specific topic (e.g., sharing national experience on air leakage databases), some at training and some at industry.[4]

External links

References

  1. 1 2 BUILD UP energy solutions for better buildings, "Launching of TightVent Europe - the Building and Ductwork Airtightness platform", 2011
  2. ↑ European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy: "EPBD Recast (Directive 2010/31/EU)- EPBD RECAST APPROVED 19 MAY 2010", 2010
  3. 1 2 BUILD UP energy solutions for better buildings: "TightVent Newsletter 1", May, 2011
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 P. Wouters, F. R. Carrie: "Airtightness of buildings and ductwork: The TightVent Europe platform", BUILDAIR Symposium, 2011
  5. 1 2 3 TightVent Europe: "More about TightVent Europe", 2011
  6. ↑ BUILD UP energy solutions for better buildings: "TightVent Newsletter 3", September, 2012
  7. ↑ BUILD UP energy solutions for better buildings: "TightVent Newsletter 4", March, 2013
  8. 1 2 TightVent Europe: "TightVent Airtightness Associations Committee – TAAC", 2013
  9. ↑ TightVent Europe: "TightVent reports", 2014
  10. ↑ BUILD UP energy solutions for better buildings : "Critical steps for wide scale implementation of building and ductwork airtightness", 2011
  11. ↑ BUILD UP energy solutions for better buildings: "Methods and techniques for airtight buildings", 2012
  12. ↑ BUILD UP energy solutions for better buildings: "Building air leakage databases in energy conservation policies: analysis of selected initiatives in 4 European countries and the USA", 2012
  13. ↑ F. R. Carrie, P. Wouters: "TN 67: Building airtightness: a critical review of testing, reporting and quality schemes in 10 countries", AIVC, 2012
  14. ↑ TightVent Europe: "Building and ductwork airtightness: Selected papers from the REHVA special journal issue on ‘airtightness’", 2013
  15. ↑ Federation of European Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Associations - REHVA: " Special Issue on airtightness", Volume: 50, Issue: 1, January 2013
  16. ↑ Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre: "October 12–13, 2011, Brussels: 32nd AIVC and 1st TightVent Conference", 2011
  17. ↑ Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre: "October 10–11, 2012, Copenhagen: 33rd AIVC and 2nd TightVent Conference", 2012
  18. ↑ Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre: "September 25–26, 2013, Athens: 34th AIVC- 3rd TightVent- 2nd Cool Roofs’ - 1st venticool conference, 2013
  19. ↑ Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre: "September 24–25, 2014, Poznan: 35th AIVC- 4th TightVent- 2nd venticool conference", 2014
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