To allow natural ventilation in steel buildings, there are elements in the design that should be considered. This is a continuation of last Friday’s post. It talks about additional design considerations for steel buildings.

· Allowing airflow between rooms of steel buildings is important. Interior doors should always be open to allow for whole-building ventilation. However, for rooms that require privacy, installing louvers or transoms is one way of providing ventilation.

· For steel buildings with attics, ventilating the attic space creates a major reduction in heat transfer to air-conditioned rooms below. It has been found that a well ventilated attic is 30°F cooler than unventilated ones.

· Consider the use of motorized fans like ceiling and whole-building fans. This strategy can provide up to 9°F temperature drop at one tenth of the energy consumption of mechanical air-conditioning systems.

· Determine which of the two methods work well to achieve natural ventilation – closed-building approach or open-building approach. For hot and dry climates where there is a significant difference between day and night temperatures, a closed-building approach is ideal. A large building is open at night to allow cooler air to come in and closed during the day to keep out the hot daytime air.

For steel buildings in war and humid areas where there is not much difference between day and night temperatures, an open-building approach is best. An open-building approach means that daytime cross ventilation is encouraged to maintain comfortable indoor temperatures.

· Opt for open staircases because they provide stack effect ventilation for steel buildings.

Source: http://www.wbdg.org/resources/naturalventilation.php#