Ventilation of Dutch schools; an integral approach to improve design

Indoor Air Quality and thermal climate in schools is very important as it has a direct relation to the health and performance of the pupils. The status quo in the Netherlands is presented (e.g. average CO2 levels in schools, quality of ventilation). The goal of a first study was to evaluate the performance of exhaust-only ventilation systems. The performance was rather disappointed there were a lot of problems and insufficient situations found. During the next years different master students [1,2,3,4] together with the staff of Technische Universiteit Eindhoven were researching different aspects of the problem and trying to find solutions. In a following study, 6 schools with different ventilation systems were studied. Main conclusions from these studies were: IAQ in the evaluated schools did not meet the requirements and more ventilation was essential for better IAQ. A new integrated approach to design adequate solutions for ventilation of school buildings was developed. First design results are described in the paper.