PARIS, France, 25 March 2024: Eurovent Certita Certification (ECC) announced that it welcomed the first products to be certified under the Eurovent Certified Performance programme for Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and energy efficiency (IAQVS). Making the announcement through a Press release, ECC said that the programme, developed alongside several European manufacturers, covers mechanical ventilation systems for single-family homes and apartments with an air flow rate < 1000m3/h. The programme, ECC said, is designed to obtain a balance between the energy performance of systems, such as the heat loss induced by air renewal and consumption of the electric motor, and IAQ, including the ability to deal with humidity, and pollutants such as CO2 and formaldehyde.

ECC said the certification allows specifiers, designers, installers, and end users to identify residential ventilation products that improve IAQ and optimise energy consumption, something increasingly important in the efforts towards reducing the carbon footprint of homes. 

According to ECC, the systems certified include:

• Central, single flow (supply or exhaust) without heat recovery
• Central, double flow (balanced ventilation) with or without heat recovery
• Single-room, single flow (decentralised continuous ventilation for supply or exhaust)
• Single-room, double flow (balanced ventilation) with or without heat recovery.

The programme, ECC said, is aimed at manufacturers of both ventilation system components and entire systems, and added that the programme advances traditional ventilation certification by certifying a complete system, and not just the aeraulic performance of the products. ECC said that to do this, data from ventilation system components is collected from the manufacturer, double-checked by Eurovent Certita Certification, and then entered into a specially built, state-of-the-art simulation tool. Furthermore, ECC said, a simulation is then undertaken, including parameters such as number of rooms, seasonality, climate, type of dwelling, number of occupants and the activities generated by the occupants in different rooms. ECC also said that thousands of iterations are carried out during the simulation until the convergence of IAQ and energy performance indicators.

ECC said that for IAQ, three indicators are scored from zero to five, with five being the highest rating achievable. According to ECC, the three indicators are:

• Carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration indicator (ICO2) which represents air stuffiness.
• Air Relative Humidity (RH) indicator (IH2O), which represents the excess/lack of humidity in the air.
• The formaldehyde concentration indicator (IFOR), which represents the chemical pollution emitted by furniture and construction materials.

ECC said that for energy performance, the following indicators are assessed:

• Energy consumption of the fan (Efan).
• Consumption induced by air renewal (Eheating).

ECC also said that for ease of use, all the indicators are represented in a label specific to each ventilation system, allowing specifiers, designers, installers, and end users to identify the performance of certified products easily.