NAVENTA wants to promote the advantages of a well-designed natural ventilation-system. Sustainable building is more than saving energy alone, health and comfort are at least as important. The choice of a ventilation-system has a large impact on health and comfort.

Energy-efficient with a healthy interior climate

Since there are different approaches and hybrid ventilation-solutions, it is necessary to avoid regulations purely based on “energy”.

The investment- and maintenance-cost must not to be neglected and the user and his comfort are all too often forgotten in the theoretical calculations.

Our focus goes to energy-efficient buildings with a healthy and comfortable interior climate, with freedom of choice in products and techniques.

Options are: night cooling, heat pumps or solar-energy systems in roof-windows, natural and hybrid ventilation.

Why Ventilative Cooling ?

Natural ventilation enjoys considerable advantages: air-conditioning equipment can be downsized initially. This reduces electrical consumption, peak demand and carbon dioxide emissions at the electrical generating plant. The results, confirmed over the last few years, are more sustainable buildings with operating budgets lower than the norm.Part of the economic and environmental success of these buildings stems from the fact that natural ventilation strategies tend to work well with other sustainable practices. For instance, the high spaces and narrow floor plates necessary for ventilation also work well with daylighting. Naturally ventilated buildings such as these also depend on thermal mass—concrete and masonry—to provide a stable mean radiant temperature.

Not only does mass temper incoming air, but ventilating it after hours, or “night flushing,” dissipates the heat built up during the day.

Mass provides a thermal damper, so the building requires less overall energy to heat and cool. Empirical insights are the starting points for design, but technology is pushing further. A computer model of the proposed design, with weather data integrated into a program, can simulate the myriad factors determining airflow.

Physical models are also used to cross-check the computer simulations, which are not perfect and are not powerful enough to model the airflow through the complicated shapes of some rooms.

Wind-tunnel testing of scale models has proved to be an effective design tool to analyze air movement through a building. The development of expertise and design tools contributes to an expanding range of naturally ventilated projects.

Why become a member of venticool?

As Naventa, we give special consideration to health-related issues when developing new natural ventilation, solar shading and night cooling systems.

By participating, Naventa wants to increase her know how and raise awareness that there is a huge need for CEN standards to calculate the influence of ventilative cooling on the energy performance of buildings.

Promoting sustainable living in buildings

Just as Villum Kann Rasmussen set out to improve people’s lives by inventing a new roof window, the VELUX Group today is also exploring new standards for sustainable living in buildings.

The company’s vision of sustainable living in buildings is based on a strong belief that the quality of life of the individual and the quality of the environment are closely linked. The VELUX Group has a clear mission to promote holistic building solutions in which high energy efficiency, use of renewable energy sources and a good indoor climate go hand in hand

Sustainable Living in Buildings is the VELUX Group’s commitment to provide high quality products and solutions that can maximise human health and well-being in buildings while minimising environmental impact.

Why the VELUX Group supports venticool

Buildings represent 40 per cent of our total energy consumption. To reduce that consumption, we must work intently on improving the energy performance of our buildings. This is also supported by the numerous legislative initiatives and regulations concerning energy consumption in buildings. But it is equally important that this goal is reached in balance with the basic human needs for a comfortable and healthy environment. The VELUX Group believes that ventilative cooling is one of the technologies that can enable us to reach our ambitious goals for energy efficiency and a good indoor climate − which is why the Group supports venticool.

Although ventilative cooling has been successfully practiced for centuries, it hardly receives a mention in today’s regulations, standards and evaluation tools. In the last decade, there has been a growing number of cases of overheating in low-energy buildings, many of which could have been avoided if ventilative cooling had been a more recognized practice. It is regrettable that the potential of ventilative cooling nowadays receives such poor recognition and that the tools that predict its performance are too limited in their scope and application.

The VELUX Group considers ventilative cooling to be a sustainable technology that includes a series of practical issues ranging from manual openings to the outside to automated and fan-assisted ventilation systems inside. The mission of venticool is therefore crucial. It supports the effective and knowledge-based promotion of the use of ventilative cooling, it fills in the gaps in the value chain of ventilative cooling that exist in calculation methods, standards and regulations, and it promotes the communication and awareness of ventilative cooling that could act as a catalyst in the development of the right solutions for the market when they are most needed.

One of the ways the VELUX Group is promoting the use of ventilative cooling is through the publication “Daylight, Energy and Indoor Climate – Basic Book” – which can be downloaded here

1. to ensure natural ventilation is properly considered at the design stage equally with mechanical ventilation or air conditioning;
2. to disseminate knowledge via seminars, publications, and the internet;
3. to recommend research projects;
4. to be at the forefront of knowledge of the low energy, environmental, and economic performance of natural ventilation;
5. to work with consultants, contractors, manufacturers, and researchers in pursuing these aims.