DIN EN 15251:2012-12

This document (EN 15251:2007) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 156 "Ventilation for buildings", the secretariat of which is held by BSI (United Kingdom). The responsible German committee is NA 041-02-50 AA "Grundlagen" ("Fundamentals") at the Heating and Ventilation Technology Standards Committee (NHRS) at DIN. The new edition of DIN EN 15251 contains, in addition to the previous document DIN EN 15251:2007-08, the National Annex "National addenda and guidance on the application of this European Standard". The content of this National Annex has been adopted in its entirety from VDI 4706 "Criteria for indoor air climate". Energy consumption of buildings depends significantly on the criteria used for the indoor environment (temperature, ventilation and lighting) and building (including their systems) design and operation. The indoor environment also affects the health, productivity and comfort of the occupants. Recent studies have shown that costs of poor indoor environment for the employer, the building owner and for society as a whole are often considerably higher than the cost of the energy used in the same building. It has also been shown that good indoor environmental quality can improve overall work and learning performance and reduce absenteeism. In addition, uncomfortable occupants are likely to take actions to make themselves comfortable which may have energy implications. An energy declaration without a declaration related to the indoor environment makes no sense. There is therefore a need for specifying criteria for the indoor environment for design, energy calculations, performance and operation of buildings. There exist national and international standards, and technical reports, which specify criteria for thermal comfort and indoor air quality (EN ISO 7730, CR 1752). These documents specify different types and categories of criteria, which may have a significant influence on the energy demand. For the thermal environment criteria for the heating season (cold/winter) and cooling season (warm/summer) are listed. These criteria are, however, mainly for dimensioning of building, heating, cooling and ventilation systems. They may not be used directly for energy calculations and year-round evaluation of the indoor thermal environment. New results have shown that occupant expectations in natural ventilated buildings may differ from conditioned buildings. These issues are not dealt with in detail in the above mentioned documents. The present standard specifies how design criteria can be established and used for dimensioning of systems. It also defines how to establish and define the main parameters to be used as input for building energy calculation and long term evaluation of the indoor environment. Finally this standard identifies parameters to be used for monitoring the indoor environment as recommended in the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. Different categories of criteria may be used depending on type of building, type of occupants, type of climate and national differences. This standard specifies several different categories of indoor environment which could be selected for a space to be conditioned. These categories may also be used to give an overall, yearly evaluation of the indoor environment by evaluating the percentage of time in each category. The designer may also select other categories using the principles from this standard. - This European Standard specifies the indoor environmental parameters which have an impact on the energy performance of buildings; - the standard specifies how to establish indoor environmental input parameters for building system design and energy performance calculations; - the standard specifies methods for long term evaluation of the indoor environment obtained as a result of calculations or measurements; - the standard specifies criteria for measurements which can be used if required to measure compliance by inspection; - the standard specifies parameters to be used by monitoring and displaying the indoor environment in existing buildings; - this standard is applicable mainly in non-industrial buildings where the criteria for indoor environment are set by human occupancy and where the production or process does not have a major impact on indoor environment. The standard is thus applicable to the following building types: single family houses, apartment buildings, offices, educational buildings, hospitals, hotels and restaurants, sports facilities, wholesale and retail trade service buildings; - the standard specifies how different categories of criteria for the indoor environment can be used. It does not, however, require that certain criteria to be used. This is up to national regulations or individual project specifications; - the recommended criteria in this standard can also be used in national calculation methods, which may be different to the methods referred to here; - the standard does not prescribe design methods, but give input parameters to the design of buildings, heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting systems; - the standard does not include criteria for local discomfort factors like draught, radiant temperature asymmetry, vertical air temperature differences and floor surface temperatures.