Evaluating Effective Ventilation Retrofits in Multifamily Dwellings

A piece of HVAC equipment mounted to a wall with exposed parts and four ducts connected to the top.

Photo by Conor Dennehy, NREL

Project Information

Team Partners

Team Lead: Steven Winter Associates Inc.
Research Member: Steven Winter Associates Inc.
Implementation Member: HR&A Advisors
Industry Members: Kinetic Communities Consulting, EcoSystem

Location

Washington, D.C.

Timeline

Late 2026

Challenge to Solve

This Building America Retrofit Solutions team is focusing on solving barriers to providing ventilation strategies in existing multifamily buildings. Incorporating ventilation as part of other retrofits for energy efficiency supports the reduction of overall energy use while providing occupants better indoor air quality.

The project team has identified data gaps and the need for reliable, empirical approaches to characterize:

Indoor pollutant concentration levels in existing buildings.
The availability and effectiveness of ventilation and local exhaust systems.
The influence of corrections on energy costs.

Approach and Impact

The team will establish baselines and analyze potential designs to demonstrate and field-test ventilation retrofits that lower contaminant concentrations in apartments.

The team will use low-cost monitoring devices, time-series databases, and building science fundamentals to assess multifamily buildings’ indoor air quality and energy performance. The team plans to leverage this data to identify, implement, and evaluate ventilation retrofits.

The team will:

Recruit buildings and residents to participate in the study.
Pilot the indoor air quality monitoring approach on an initial group of apartments in one building.
Implement initial ventilation retrofits.
Expand monitoring and data acquisition to more apartments while continuing monitoring and analysis efforts.
Conduct post-retrofit analysis.
Implement subsequent retrofits.

Ultimately, the team aims to improve apartment residents’ indoor air quality while highlighting the importance of occupant health.

About Building America Retrofit Solutions

As part of a Building Technologies Office initiative, the nine cross-sector Building America Retrofit Solutions teams are working on one- to three-year community-focused field validation and demonstration projects that will address hard-to-solve technical challenges of increasing efficiency, affordability, and comfort of existing homes.