TightVent Europe

TightVent Europe logo

TightVent Europe is a platform focused on building and ductwork airtightness issues.[1] The platform's creation was triggered to meet the 2020 targets of the Directive on the energy performance of buildings[2] and overcome the challenges related to envelope and ductwork leakage towards the generalization of nearly zero-energy buildings.[3] The platform's main activities include producing and disseminating policy-oriented publications, networking among local or national airtightness associations, and organizing conferences, workshops and webinars.[4]

History

TightVent Europe was launched and initiated in January 2011 by INIVE (International Network for Information on Ventilation and Energy Performance), a registered whose members include building research centers in Europe.[5] Since then, the platform has received the financial and/or technical support from its partners: ACIN Instruments, BCCA, BlowerDoor GmbH, Buildings Performance Institute Europe, dooApp, Eurima, Industrias Gonal, Lindab, MEZ-TECHNIK, Retrotec, Soudal and SIGA.

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, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the USA.[8] The scope of this committee includes various aspects such as:

• airtightness and ventilation inspection requirements in the countries involved
• competent tester/inspectors schemes in the countries involved
• applicable standards and guidelines for testing/inspecting
• collection of relevant guidance and training documents
• knowledge and experience sharing during the meetings
• providing information on ongoing research work in the building and ductwork airtightness and ventilation inspection fields

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]

References

1. BUILD UP energy solutions for better buildings, "Launching of TightVent Europe - the Building and Ductwork Airtightness platform", 2011
2. European Commission, “DIRECTIVE (EU) 2018/844 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 30 May 2018 amending Directive 2010/31/EU on the energy performance of buildings and Directive 2012/27/EU on energy efficiency”, Official Journal of the European Union, 2018
3. BUILD UP energy solutions for better buildings: "TightVent Newsletter 1", May, 2011
4. P. Wouters, F. R. Carrie: "Airtightness of buildings and ductwork: The TightVent Europe platform", BUILDAIR Symposium, 2011
5. 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. 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