Letting Buildings Breathe

This super-cool new product from a company called Breathing Buildings in the United Kingdom really kicks natural ventilation up a notch. Whereas usually naturally ventilated buildings can be cooled without air conditioning, which cuts down on energy costs, the Breathing Buildings system also uses natural ventilation to heat the building. I know, sounds impossible. Except that it totally isn’t, all you need is an operable window on your ceiling.

Here’s how it works: When it’s cold outside, the lower-level windows are closed, but the heat produced by the building and its occupants is actually more than enough to heat the space, and that heat rises. Once it gets to the top of the building, the rooftop window brings in cool air, which is then forcibly mixed with the building’s heat via Breathing Building’s equipment. That process warms up the incoming air, which is then pushed throughout the building. In other words, the building warms up the draft coming in from outside.

The best part of it is that Breathing Buildings’ equipment is priced about the same as an average HVAC system, and that’s not taking into consideration the money the system saves on energy costs over time. Currently the system is only available in the UK, where it is installed in about 20 schools and a theater, and is currently being evaluated by massive grocery chain Tesco (as well as a certain other big-box retailer with American ties that shall remain nameless).

“The performance of the system in the first schools has lived up to what we predicted in our modeling, which was that schools could probably save about 300 to 400 pounds per year per classroom,” says Dr. Shaun Fitzgerald, co-founder of Breathing Buildings and co-inventor of the system. “If you assume the average school has 30 classrooms, that’s a teacher’s salary.”

Improving education via energy savings. Brilliant!