Influence of residential ventilation on Radon mitigation with energy saving emphasis

There are many indoor pollutants in the residential buildings. High insulation and tightness in buildings in order to increase energy efficiency and to lower energy costs is led to the indoor air quality problems. To provide sufficient fresh air and to promote indoor air quality at acceptable level, it is needed to increase ventilation rate to overcome such pollutants. The aim of this paper is to study about energy efficient mechanical ventilation to overcome poor indoor air quality and energy consumption associated with radon ventilation. Ventilation is a good method to dilute radon contaminant and maintain indoor air quality, but in the other hand ventilation is account for about 50 percent of energy use in residential buildings. Designing the required rate and location of ventilation systems and also choosing the best type of ventilation strategies can be provided both indoor air quality (IAQ) and building energy savings (BES). Computational fluid dynamics technique as a useful tool can be used to simulate and visualize radon treatment and mechanical ventilation rates for optimizing energy consumption and achieving to indoor air quality. Results show that the exhaust fan installed in the middle another one in the left side have different impacts on distribution of radon contents in the room. Also when the rate of ventilation is changed from 7.5 l/s to 35 l/s the radon concentration will be decreased. By choosing the optimum features of ventilation system, energy saving can be obtained.