Atlanta, Georgia: ASHRAE has announced that a seminar titled “High Performance Residential Building Applications and Issues” will take place on January 25 at the ASHRAE 2016 Winter Conference, to be held from January 23 to 27, in Orlando, Florida.

Experts from the natural gas industry, the US Department of Energy and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will describe results of their decades of real-world experience measuring and understanding the behaviour of tight houses, as well as provide practical tips to help both HVAC professionals and home owners ensure safe, high-quality indoor air in the tight, net-zero energy houses of the 21st Century, ASHRAE revealed.

The seminar, said ASHRAE, is part of the Technical Program track on modern residential systems.

Contextualising the seminar, ASHRAE said that over the last 15 years, single family homes have been built tighter, making them much more energy efficient and comfortable, compared to drafty houses of the past, but pointed out that there was a tradeoff. “While the energy benefits are great, air-tight homes demand thoughtful HVAC&R design for ventilation and building pressure management,” said Lew Harriman, who will be chairing a session which addresses residential building applications at the conference. “The big issues involve adequate outdoor air for kitchen and bathroom exhausts and combustion appliances, plus the continuous ventilation now required by ASHRAE’s residential Indoor Air Quality Standard, 62.2.”

Giving an overview, ASHRAE said that the Technical Program, running from January 24 to 27, features eight tracks, some 100 sessions and more than 300 speakers, and offers over 200 Professional Development Hours, as well as Continuing Education Units, which can be applied towards a Professional Engineering license in many states, including the state of Florida.

To register for the ASHRAE Conference, which includes free access to the Expo, those interested can visit www.ashrae.org/orlando.