The concept of fireproof construction in Japanese building regulation was redefined in 2000 to enable large wood based buildings to sustain permanent load bearing capability even after enduring the effects of a fire. The target of this study is the fireproof layered structure composed of:

 a) a load bearing part at the core

 b) a barrier (fire-retardant impregnated wood)

 c) a sacrificial layer

 This type of layered structure is the furthest behind in terms of development in respect to other types of wood-based fireproof construction.

 The authors clarified the condition of ability to self-extinguish, to the point of no further glowing combustion, after the fire heating of this test target. In the previous report, by designing the thickness of the sacrificial layer so as to reach the pyrolysis temperature of the fire retardant agent during heating, the fire retardant performance of the barrier can be minimized. From the pyrolysis temperature of the fire retardant agent, the sacrificial layer thickness may be increased in proportion to the fire resistance time.

 However, if there is an optimum thickness of the sacrificial layer at each fire resistance time then the sacrificial layer, which is exposed to fire heating shorter than the designed fire resistance time, cannot self-extinguish. Therefore, the following 2 tests were conducted in order to clarify that the sacrificial layer thickness does not depend on the designed fire resistance time.

 (1) Bench-scale tests were conducted using small specimens modeling the wooden fireproof structural elements in order to confirm whether they self-extinguished when they were heated for a time shorter than the designed fire resistance time.

 (2) From series (1), it was estimated that 25mm is the optimum sacrificial-layer-thickness independent of the designed fire resistance time (the specification had fire resistance for 1 hour). Therefore, the specification was confirmed through further testing that it self-extinguished even when exposed to heating for less than 1 hour.

 From these tests, the following conclusions can be drawn.

 1. The sacrificial layer, with a thickness designed according to the fire resistance time, may not be self-extinguishing in some cases if the heating time is shorter than the designed fire resistance time. The reason are as follows. First, since the sacrificial layer is too thick to allow the heat to penetrate into the barrier layer by the end of heating, meaning the barrier layer will not reach pyrolysis temperature. Second, the sacrificial layer is kept hot by the carbonized layer on the surface, meaning heat loss on the surface does not cause it to self-extinguish.

 2. Regardless of the heating time and type of the fireproof performance, the optimum thickness range of surface layer is 25 mm or less. In the range where carbonization is completed during heating, fire proof performance is not greatly affected without using fire retardant wood as the sacrificial layer. Therefore, an optimum design method for wooden fireproof structural elements is to set the sacrificial layer thickness to the upper limit value so that it does not burn by glowing combustion after the end of heating.

 Recently, many new tools have been developed to assist wayfinding to the destination, yet few still feel the difficulty reaching to the destination. Such people are generally classified as person with "no sense of direction". Many researches have been done on the sense of direction and composition of spatial cognition, but most of them have only revealed the elements related to it. Even when measuring the ability of people, it often ends up grouping into 2; "no sense of direction" or not. However, the problem may not lie being so-called "no sense of direction" but on the miss-match of information. In order to establish the hypothesis, the brain mechanism of spatial cognition was investigated, and it was found that there are brain cells that acquire information of "direction", "route" and "landscape"; for example Head-direction cell, Grid cell, Place cell and Spatial view cell. While moving to the destination, three types of information (orientation, navigation and location) are extracted from the environment, using the information to direct the current location and the destination. Based on the brain mechanism of spatial cognition, hypothesis was created that there are 3 main abilities, "Sense of Direction", "Map Recall" and "Scenery Recall", and that high and low of each ability creates 8 types of spatial cognition. There are many researches on spatial cognition, and those results show that the factors related to spatial cognition can be summarized into six: "Azimuth Cognition", "Sense of Direction", "Map recall", "Scenery Recall", "Anxious" and "Word Instruction".

 Therefore, in this research, experiments were done in order to extract factors for street perception and establish spatial cognition types. First, impression evaluation was done to grasp the framework of street perception. As a result of the factor analysis, six factors (“Map Recall and Anxious”, “Azimuth Cognition”, “Sense of Direction”, “Word Instruction”, “Scenery Recall” and “Map Rotation”) were extracted. Since three factors out of six factors corresponded to the three abilities of the hypothesis, the validity of 3 ability was suggested.

 Next, the sample size was examined by power analysis before a route walking experiment. As a result, 15 subjects are needed in one group, so in total 30 subjects were selected for the next experiment. A route walking experiment was conducted to test the abilities by 3 practical tasks; 1. task of indicating the direction, 2. task of selecting the correct route plan, and 3. task of selecting the correct picture. The difference of 6 factor loadings of street perception evaluation was t-tested by the 2 groups divided by the quartile of each subject’s task score. Analytical result suggested that there was significant differences of factor loading score corresponded to each ability between the 2 groups; “Sense of Direction” with Angular error mean (25 percentile-value), “Map Recall” with time of selecting route chart (75 percentile-value) and “Scenery Recall” with correct rate of selecting pictures (25 and 50 percentile-value).

 In conclusion, 3 main abilities can be classified into two groups, which proved the hypothesis that stated 8 types of spatial cognition. Further study is needed to find out suitable information type for each spatial cognition types.

 Walking vibration can cause complaints on building floor, especially on timber floor which has less weight and stiffness than concrete slab of reinforced concrete structure or steel structure. However, an evaluation index of AIJ “Guidelines for the evaluation of habitability of building vibration” developed based on studies which investigated human perception to sinusoidal vibration, and has been pointed out that this index shows stricter evaluations to walking vibrations on timber floor. On the other hand, an estimation method of walking vibration on timber floor is not established because of lack of knowledge about material parameters, setting connections and so on.

 In this study, as a first step toward establishing the evaluation method and the estimation method, the vibration characteristics of a CLT floor subjected to walking vibrations was measured. Using these result, a finite element model was also created to investigate the influence of varying material properties and boundary conditions on the vibration performance of the floor. Then, via measurement three specimens of CLT floor, the influence of CLT floor-wall connection upon vibration characteristics was investigated. In conclusion, through analytical modeling based on these results, the span table of CLT floor from the viewpoint of walking vibration was presented.

 The investigation procedure and result are described as follows;

 1) Vibration characteristics of a CLT floor was measured through static loading test, dynamic impact test and walking vibration test. It was found that the CLT floor-wall connection is similar to pin support, and the damping ratio with two people on the CLT floor was 5.1%. And it was also found that the VLT index which was presented as an evaluation index of walking vibration on timber floor is applicable to walking vibration on CLT floor.

 2) The finite element model was created based on the investigated results, and the estimation method of walking vibration on CLT floor was considered. As a result, it was found that the walking force using for analysis should not be consisted with same footstep forces which causes bias of frequency characteristics, but be consisted with different footstep forces which has realistic frequency characteristics.

 3) The vibration characteristics of three types specimens which have different CLT floor-wall connection, using L-shaped angle, using screw vertically, and using screw diagonally, were investigated. As a result, each measured result indicated that there is little difference between these specimens. In particular, the damping ratio in condition of two people on the floor were about 5% on each specimen.

 4) Based on the results obtained these investigations, the CLT finite element model was created as a general CLT floor, and the analysis about the relationship between the vibration characteristics and the floor span was conducted. As a result, through collating the analyzed VLT results with the evaluation index of previous study, the span table of CLT floor from the viewpoint of walking vibration was presented. This span table is different from the span table from the viewpoint of structural safety and can be used to suit the various requirements of the building user. Then, through comparing the analyzed results with two criteria, it corresponds to the criterion developed in Japan, but it doesn’t correspond to the criterion developed in foreign country.

 To measure the environmental vibration inside buildings, a piezoelectric acceleration pickup combined with a vibration meter or a vibration level meter is often used. In all these cases, while installing the vibration pickup on the floor, it is necessary to pay attention to the mounted resonance. Inside a building, the mounted resonance occurs when a vibration pickup is placed on a soft flooring material such as a carpet, thus creating a vibration system through the spring of the flooring material and the mass of the vibration pickup, with amplified vibration at the resonance frequency. Therefore, when evaluating the vibration of the floor structure accurately, it is necessary to remove the flooring material for accurate measurements. A manual on environmental vibration measurement states, "When the floor is covered by a soft flooring material such as a carpet, remove the material to the extent possible and install (the vibration pickup) on the building frame".

 In general, the vibration level meters are adapted to the measurement standards of JIS C 1550:1995 and JIS C 1517:2014; moreover, the vibration pickup of these meters can measure accurately from 1 Hz. However, their weight is relatively large at 320 to 335 g. From the viewpoint of mounted resonance, it is very difficult to prevent mounted resonance with these devices because the resonance frequency is low when compared to a piezoelectric-type acceleration pickup, which weighs approximately 20 g. Therefore, in this study, we conducted research on the vibration pickup of a vibration level meter.

 In this study, in contrast to the conventional approach, we investigated a method that enables accurate measurement of the vibration acceleration of the floor structure under a carpet without removing the flooring material, which is a nondestructive inspection. This paper reports an outline of the measurement method, and though limited in scope, the experimentally verified results are presented. The range of frequencies covered by this study for the analysis of vertical vibration in a building includes the one-third octave band from 3.15 to 80 Hz.

 The prediction technique proposed in this study was carried out by the following method for each frequency band.

 ① Measure on the carpet, carpet + vibration control rubber carry out.

 ② Calculate the relative acceleration level of ①.

 ③ Focus on the resonance frequency of ②.

 ④ In the frequency band lower than √2 times the resonance frequency, the result on the carpet is used.

 ⑤ In the frequency band higher than √2 times the resonance frequency, a method of adding the correction value based on the vibration transmission rate of the vibration control rubber alone to the result of the vibration control rubber on the carpet was proposed.

 As a result of the verification, it was possible to show very good correspondence with the actual measurement result of the concrete slab surface on which the carpet was peeled off.

 In this study, we proposed a method to predict the vibration acceleration level of a concrete slab by means of a nondestructive inspection without removing the carpet. When a complaint arises, this method suggests the possibility of predicting the vibration acceleration level of a concrete slab with high precision on-site without removing the carpet, by measuring in advance the resonance characteristics of the vibration control rubber to be used.

 Since the sickroom is the place where patients live all day and night, it is necessary to prepare a patient-oriented medical care environment. Especially, the person is easy to affect by indoor environment during sleep at night because the thermoregulation function decreases. However, there are many cases using convective air conditioning system as present system of sickrooms. In the case of such system, it is considered that the indoor thermal environment may have the bad influence on the patient’s physical condition and the physical activity in their awake because of the influence of draft and the excessive change of room temperature. Recently, the ceiling radiation air conditioning system has got an attention in Japan. This system serves to maintain indoor environment without temperature difference and draft. Therefore, this makes a comfortable thermal environment. In this study, we carried out subject experiments for sleeping person in summer using the laboratory which simulated a sickroom with the convective cooling system and the ceiling radiant cooling system. The subject of our study is to reveal the influence on human physiological and psychological responses by the different methods of cooling system. Furthermore, we confirmed the thermal environment in detail by CFD analysis which reproduced the experiment.

 Fifteen healthy young males (mean age 22.3 years) slept in laboratory. We measured electroencephalogram signals, skin temperature, body movement during sleeping as physiological values. Also, the subjects answered using a questionnaire about the thermal sensation and comfort feeling in the room before and after sleep.

 Based on the results, the following was found out.

 1. Comparing the temporal change of room temperature of both cooling system, the variation range of the living area temperature around the bed was large in convective cooling system. On the other hand, the ceiling radiant cooling system was uniform at room temperature. As a result, we confirmed the unsteady difference of indoor thermal environment by two types of cooling system.

 2. As a result of physiological quantity, the skin temperature of hands and feet without beddings had colder on the case of convective cooling system. Furthermore, the sleep efficiency evaluated by electroencephalogram signals was high in the case of ceiling radiant cooling system. Because the subjects had shorter sleep onset latency and arousal time, and longer deep sleep time.

 3. As a consequence of psychological quantity, the sleep state to evaluate after awaking in the morning was good in this cooling system.

 4. CFD analysis revealed that the room temperature, wind direction and wind speed differ greatly in convective cooling system between strong wind and weak wind. In the ceiling radiant cooling system, the indoor thermal environment was kept uniform.

 To accurately simulate skin, core temperatures, and thermal comfort, certain human physiology and comfort models categorize the human body into multiple body parts. Most of these parts are normally clothed, which must be quantified in the simulation. However, existing databases of clothing evaporative resistance only characterize the evaporative resistance for the whole body and not for individual body parts. Clothing evaporative resistance for the whole body does not consider the actual characteristics of the clothing ensemble that is not uniformly distributed on each body part as considerable overlapping exists, and hence, the value is converted into clothing that uniformly covers the whole body. In other words, each body part has the same level of clothing evaporative resistance. However, using a constant value as input to each body part of a multi-segmented human physiology and comfort model may be one of the causes of simulation error. Therefore, while evaluating the human thermal physiology and comfort in detail, it is desirable to evaluate it by measuring the local clothing evaporative resistance.

 In this research, we measured local clothing insulation and clothing evaporative resistance for 8 typical summer clothing ensembles in a climate chamber using a 20-segment sweating thermal manikin and presented the clothing insulation, evaporative resistance, clothing vapor permeation efficiency values for each body part as well as those for the whole body. For calculating the local clothing evaporative resistance, the heat loss method using the local heat flux supplied by the manikin was used and the calculated value was corrected with reference to the previous study. Further, the moisture permeability index for each body part was calculated using the obtained two values (local clothing insulation and clothing evaporative resistance).

 As a result, it was observed that the local clothing insulation, clothing evaporative resistance, and clothing vapor permeation efficiency had comparative part differences for any clothing ensemble measured in this study because of the material of clothing and the state of overlaying. For example, clothing evaporative resistance of a foot wearing leather shoes was more than twice as large as that of the whole body, and the clothing vapor permeation efficiency was less than half of that of the whole body. Additionally, clothing insulation and clothing evaporative resistance values for body parts such as the stomach were much larger than those of the whole body. Hence, it was quantitatively shown that when we evaluate the human thermal physiology and comfort in detail for each part, it is necessary to consider the clothing thermal characteristics of each body part. The data of the local thermal characteristics of clothing obtained via this study is useful for the multi-segmented model of human physiology and comfort model.

 The heterogeneous distribution of contaminant in enclosed environment is essentially formed by non-uniformity of airflow pattern and maldistribution of contaminant generation source. Recent technologies to analyze flow and contaminant distributions in indoor environment can allow the detail prediction of concentration distributions. However, in order to understand the essential forming structure of heterogeneity of contaminant concentration, quantitative and qualitative indices that can be explained “Why did this heterogeneous concentration distribution and the concentration value at a point form?” is required. Against this motivation, we have proposed new index, Net Escape Velocity (NEV), for evaluating ventilation efficiency at a point under heterogeneous concentration distribution of contaminant in indoor environment and reported/demonstrated the fundamental concept and application example for ventilation design. In this study, in develop NEV concept into practical ventilation design, we firstly try to apply NEV concept into contaminant concentration field formation in the presence of chemical reaction in indoor environment. Secondary, we also discuss the impact of turbulent diffusivity, i.e. Turbulent Schmidt number as basically a function of physical properties of target chemical compounds, on the estimation results of NEV.

 In this paper, we focused on the influence of the Turbulent Schmidt number and the first Damköhler number on a contaminant concentration field analysis result, the diffusion field analyses were performed by gradually changing the Turbulent Schmidt number and the first Damköhler number, and the ventilation efficiency indices NEV and Net Escape Probability (NEP) proposed us were calculated using the results of airflow field and diffusion field, and try to consider the concentration field formation mechanism.

 Sensitivity analysis was performed by sequentially changing the Turbulent Schmidt number and the first Damköhler number as the model parameters for a simple two-dimensional (2D) flow field. The size of the simple room model is 10L₀×10L₀ (L₀ is the representative length scale and corresponds to the size of the inlet opening) with a non-dimensional scale. Diffusion field analysis of contaminants (scalars) was performed by gradually changing the Turbulent Schmidt number σ_t in the range of 0.5 to 1.0 and the first Damköhler number D_a in the range of 1× 10^-5 to 1× 10^-2. In addition, we report the result of evaluating the ventilation efficiency indices NEV and NEP by the result of diffusion field analysis. The NEV/ NEP value at a CV is calculated using the result of diffusion field, which is a contaminant, is only generated in the CV, and NEV/ NEP distribution is obtained by synthesizing the NEV/ NEP value of each CV. It means that 100 calculations should be carried out, which corresponds to the total numbers of meshes for NEV/ NEP distribution.

 As a result, focusing on the analysis result of the ventilation index NEV, when the Turbulent Schmidt number σ_t is greatly changed from 0.5 to 1.0, a clear difference cannot be confirmed in the entire NEV distribution, but the value of NEV at the central CV in the room is increased 44.2%, and indicating contribution of contaminant discharge efficiency due to turbulent diffusion in addition to convection wind speed. When the first Damköhler number D_a was changed from 1.0× 10^-5 to 1.0× 10^-2, there was no change in the overall NEV distribution, and no significant difference was confirmed on each CV value. Compared with the convection and diffusion effect in the room, the decontamination effect by the reaction accompanying the spraying of the chemical substance in the room air is very small.

 BACKGROUND : Phenylacetic acid and nonanoic acid are unpleasant odorants present in the living environment. However, since they are high boiling point and difficult to vaporize, it is thought that they have not been treated as odor substances so far. According to our previous study, we measured the odor threshold of young people aged 19 to 22 years and evaluated odor intensity, pleasantness/ unpleasantness etc. of 138 research participants aged 19 to 66 years old, and we grasped the basic odor characteristics of phenylacetic acid and nonanoic acid. Then, in order to determine the odor standard value used as an indicator of comfortness, we calculated the odor index at the unacceptable rate of 20%. In this study, the odor threshold of the people who are aged 55 to 66 years old was measured and compared with the odor threshold of young people. Furthermore, we divided into two groups of young age group and the elderly age group and tried to compare the characteristics of odor and odor standard value between age groups.

 METHODS : The odor concentration was measured using the Triangle Odor Bag Method that follows the outlet sample method as per 63rd notification of the Agency of the Environment, Japan, from 1995 (latest revision: 79th notification of the Ministry of the Environment, 2016). We divided the gas concentration of odor sample by gas concentration to find the odor threshold of the elderly age group. As for the measurement of the characteristics of each odor substance, nitrogen gas was filled in the odor bag, injected with reagent, heated and vaporized to prepare primary odor sample. And then diluted with odorless air to prepare a sample of odor substances. Research participants were allowed to evaluate samples at concentrations of four levels for each substance.

 RESULTS : The olfactory threshold of the elderly age group was 1.5 × 10^-5 ppm for phenylacetic acid and 1.9 × 10^-3 ppm for nonanoic acid, both of which were higher than the odor threshold of the young group. It was equal to or less than the odor threshold of the bad odor substance in the past study. As a result of odor intensity, pleasant / unpleasantness of odor samples with four levels of odor concentration, the young group tended to evaluate stronger and unpleasant compared to the elderly group in both substances. About the odor concentration when the unacceptable rate was 20%; for phenylacetic acid were 24 for young group, 27 for the elderly group, for nonanoic acid were 51 for young group, 78 for the elderly group. The odor standard value was determined by odor intensity using logistic regression; for phenylacetic acid were 1.6 for young group and 1.5 for the elderly group, for nonanoic acid were 1.7 for young age group and 1.6 for the elderly group, which age groups were almost equivalent.

 CONCLUSIONS : It was thought that the tendency for the elderly group to perceive odors weak in terms of odor threshold, odor intensity, pleasant / unpleasantness but there was almost no difference in acceptable level. It was thought that acceptability can be judged if odor can be detected even though age is high. Since all odor intensity falls within the cognitive odor threshold of 2 or less, it is considered preferable to control odor intensity 2 or less in phenylacetic acid and nonanoic acid irrespective of age.

 In recent years, considering the actual state of final energy consumption in Japan, energy conservation measures in the civilian sector, especially in the air conditioning field are urgent cases. In general, the air conditioning system is said to account for about 70% or more of the operation time with a load factor of 50% or less, and it is required to improve the partial load efficiency during low load factor operation. Also, looking at stocks of existing buildings by size, small buildings of less than 1,000 square meters account for about 90% of the total, but due to economic restrictions greatly, the energy management of the system is almost none.

 In this research, we aim to improve the operation efficiency of the system and reduce energy consumption, and also propose an improvement method of the system for the centralize air conditioning system of the existing small and medium-sized building. We focused on the fact that the required heat capacity of the thermal storage tank can be drastically reduced by adopting a period shorter than one hour, the heat cycle of charge and discharge instead of heat cycle of day which is adopted mostly by conventional heat storage technology. As a result, it was possible to construct a heat storage system using a small thermal storage tank, and to propose an improvement method of a system that can be easily introduced into existing small and medium - sized buildings.

 The TES tank is added on a bypass pipe and charges heat when the volume of chilled water from the heat-source equipment exceeds that required by the secondary side. Simultaneously, the heat-source equipment improves the operational load factor as heat is charged in the TES tank. Once charge process done, chilled water is supplied to the secondary side from the tank. Also, the heat-source equipment and the chilled-water pumps can be stopped their operation. This system is considered acceptable at the heating season, because the daily average of the operational load ratio is relatively low.

 The unit size of the TES system is 1 m³, and charge and discharge process is induced by temperature stratification inside the tank. There are 56 phase change materials (PCMs) arranged horizontally, determined by CFD analysis.

 Two-dimensional TES simulation model was designed and verified by experimental equipment. The difference of charge-discharge rate between experiment and simulation was within 5% in cases of every flow rate, therefore it can be said that the simulation model has enough accuracy.

 We estimate the effect of the operating efficiency improvement and energy saving of the HVAC/TES system caused by introducing the proposed system by using a simulation model. The model building is a ten-story office building, located in Tokyo. The simulation period is four months from December to March where the air conditioning system is in heating operation, and the calculation interval is 2 seconds. As a result of the simulation, the heat source equipment energy consumption in the heating period is reduced by 30% by improving the operation efficiency of the heat source equipment during the heat charge/discharge cycle, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed system.

 INTRODUCTION

 In this paper, numerical simulation is conducted when total 5.3 million units of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) and Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell (PEFC) are installed and operated nationwide, for power generation configuration and electricity supply amount of general electric utilities before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Calculate the primary energy reduction amount when a large number of home-use fuel cell co-generation systems (FCCGS) are installed and operated. Evaluation of introduction effect of home-use FCCGS as distributed power supply is performed. When a large number of fuel cells are installed, the power burden of the grid power is reduced. Operation of relatively inefficient power generation facilities will be reduced, and the primary energy consumption unit of grid power will also decrease. There is a possibility that primary energy will be reduced also in the non-residential housing that introduced home-use FCCGS. We will also consider this point in this paper. It is considered important to examine the primary energy reduction amount when introducing a large number of fuel cells in considering Japan's future energy mix.

 RESEARCH METHODS

 The target area is 9 areas for each electric power supply range of nine general electric power companies in Japan, and each detached house and apartment house is the target housing. For the housing model of detached houses, use the standard problem model for housing of Architectural Institute of Japan, and for apartment houses, use the intermediate floor / intermediate dwelling model of one corridor type plate type. The average U-value 0.82 W / (m²·K) for detached houses and 0.68 W / (m²·K) for apartment houses throughout the country.

 For thermal load calculation, use thermal load simulation software TRNSYS Ver. 16. Calculate the hourly air conditioning load of each target housing in each prefecture. For meteorological data, weather data for every hour published by the Japan Meteorological Agency on the web, lighting and various pieces of equipment heating data are calculated using SCHEDULE data. Weather data is used for 2010 and 2012.

 Type of the cell stack of the fuel cell is two kinds of the polymer electrolyte (PE) and solid oxide (SO). PEFC sets startup time for target area, season, and house type and operation method in order to start and stop once a day. The start-up time is determined as the representative day from the coolest day in winter, summer season, and moderate seasons. In the SOFC installed house, the surplus heat after filling the hot water storage tank capacity is released to the atmosphere with a radiator (fan electric consumption: 4.8W). Surplus electric power during home-use FCCGS operation is flown to utility grid. When power generation of FCCGS follows power demand, each efficiency is changed by using the performance curve at partial load.

 RESULTS

 The results are as follows;

 In comparison with the fuel cell operation method, the primary energy reduction amount is large when rated operation is performed.

 In terms of the power supply configuration, the total primary energy consumption will be reduced in both cases, but the primary energy consumption of FC houses will increase in nuclear power plants (2010). In the case of the power generation configuration including the nuclear power plant, the primary energy reduction amount is relatively small because the primary energy consumption intensity of the grid electric power is small.

 The primary energy reduction rate is about 0.6 to 1.3% in the case of no nuclear power plants (2012).

 The aim of this study is to verify the annual characteristics of indoor environments in facilities for the elderly in cold regions. The temperatures, humidity and CO₂ concentrations were measured in rooms and common spaces of 4 facilities for the elderly in Finland Espoo and 4 facilities for the elderly in Hokkaido Sapporo through a year. At first, the daily characteristics and the annual characteristics of indoor environments were analyzed. Secondly, the required humidification rate to control the indoor relative humidity to meet 40RH% (SEHMB: Standard for Environment and Health Management of a Building) were calculated using the results of the long-term measurements. The required humidification rates on condition that carbon dioxide concentrations are same as the measured concentrations and the rate on condition that the concentration controlled to 800ppm were calculated and the results of Finnish facilities and those of Hokkaido’s facilities were compared. Thirdly, the energy loads for ventilation and humidification and the influenza concentrations were calculated with these conditions on ventilation. The results showed the followings.

 1. In winter, the outdoor temperatures of Finnish facilities are not so different from those of Hokkaido’s facilities. However in mild or cooling seasons, the outdoor temperatures and absolute humidity are higher in Hokkaido than in Finland.

 2. Temperatures are well controlled in winter by floor heating systems in both Finnish facilities and Hokkaido’s facilities.

 3. Even if the portable humidifiers were used in Hokkaido’s facilities, the humidity is lower than the standard 40RH% .The indoor humidity is lower in Finnish facilities and the indoor absolute humidity is same as the outdoor in Finnish facilities where humidifiers are not used at all.

 4. In summer, the absolute humidity decreases in Hokkaido’s facilities where cooling systems were used in the common spaces. However the absolute humidity did not decrease in Finnish facilities.

 5. The concentrations of carbon dioxide were enough lower than the SEHMB 1000ppm in all facilities. The concentrations change with the dwellers behaviors especially in Hokkaido’s facilities where they open windows and operate ventilation fan in order to control smell and risk of influenza infection.

 6. Because the ventilation rate are kept higher in Finish facilities, the risk of influenza infection is lower in Finish facilities than in Hokkaido’s facilities.

 7. Because heat recovery systems are used in Finish facilities, the energy load of humidification and ventilation is kept lower in Finish facilities.

 These results showed that it is necessary to control both ventilation and humidification considering energy loads and influenza infection risks.