scholarly journals A large field study of relationship between indoor and outdoor climate in residential buildings

2021 ◽  
Vol 2069 (1) ◽  
pp. 012247
Author(s):  
Ricardo F Rupp ◽  
Gianluca Trotta ◽  
Jørn Toftum ◽  
Rune K Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Residential Buildings ◽  
National Level ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Outdoor Climate ◽  
Building Simulations ◽  
Iot Devices ◽  
Indoor And Outdoor

Abstract High-quality data on indoor climate and energy collected in buildings is required to deepen our understanding of building performance. The aim of this work was to investigate the relationship between the indoor and outdoor climate in Danish residential buildings. Field data was collected in 45 apartments from April 2019 to November 2020. Internet of things (IoT) devices were installed to record the temperature, relative humidity and CO2 concentration in the central corridor of each apartment. High CO2 concentration (above 1,000ppm) and overheating were observed in the apartments. The changeover between the heating mode and the free running mode occurred between 11.1 to 13.6°C of outdoor air temperature. The temperature setpoints of the heating systems were around 20.6-22.3°C, which could be useful values to feed building simulations in order to achieve more realistic predictions of indoor climate and energy. The results of this study improve our understanding of indoor environmental quality in residential buildings at a national level.

scholarly journals Solutions for retrofitting existing, wooden houses in cold climates

2020 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 18010
Author(s):  
Bozena Dorota Hrynyszyn ◽  
Zhiyong Tian
Keyword(s):  
Residential Buildings ◽  
National Level ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Energy Requirements ◽  
Cold Climates ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Cooling Loads ◽  
Near Future

Upgrading existing one-family houses to higher energy standards can be a challenge for owners, among others, due to the unclear status of technical regulations in the case of retrofitting at the national level. Retrofitting projects face technical obstacles that can be difficult to exclude with sensible measures. As a result, retrofitting projects are more difficult to complete. How can we effectively increase the rate of retrofitting projects for private owned residential buildings? Challenges associated with a complete renovation were listed, analysed and illustrated based on one of the smallest Norwegian typical wooden houses from the 1960s. Optimal packages of solutions for the retrofitting, based on energy simulation models, were proposed. The analysis showed that existing buildings are vulnerable meeting today’s, much stronger, energy requirements equal for all buildings. More attention should be given to the development of separate regulations at the national level as well as to the development of retrofitting solutions, if the goal of increasing the number of renovations is to be achieved. The efficient use of solar energy becomes an important measure, especially in the context of expected climate change, and a key to achieve sustainable energy management and a better indoor climate. To avoid unnecessary cooling loads and ensure optimal thermal comfort for residents, overheating criteria should be included in energy requirements even in cold climates in the near future.

scholarly journals Managing climate-change-induced overheating in non-residential buildings

2020 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 02009
Author(s):  
André Badura ◽  
Birgit Mueller ◽  
Ivo Martinac
Keyword(s):  
Energy Demand ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Outdoor Climate

Large and rapid climatic changes can be uncomfortable and sometimes hazardous to humans. Buildings protect people from external climatic conditions, and also mitigate the impacts of external climate extremes through their design and construction, as well as with the help of dedicated building service and other technical systems. Active space conditioning accounts for more than 30 per cent of the overall final energy use in Germany. In the life cycle of a building, the construction phase (planning and construction) is the phase with the shortest duration. However, the quality applied during this phase has a significant impact on the resources required, as well as the overall building performance during the much longer operational phase. Once built, buildings are often unable to adapt to boundary conditions that were not considered in the original building design. Consequently, changing outdoor climate conditions can result in an uncomfortable indoor climate over the lifetime of a building. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of flexible solutions for reducing winter heating loads and to reducing/avoiding summer cooling loads in nonresidential buildings in Germany. Various external shading scenarios for non-residential buildings were analysed using the IDA ICE indoor climate and energy simulation tool. Key simulation parameters included the orientation and location of the building, as well as the envelope structure. We investigated the impacts of solar shading on heat storage in the building mass and indoor climate and how different types of envelopes affect overall energy use. The result shows that the use of an adaptive building envelope allows a higher reduction of the total energy demand by 7 % to 15 % compared to an increase in insulation thickness only.

Correlating Indoor and Outdoor Temperature and Humidity in a Sample of Buildings in Tropical Climates

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Pan ◽  
Julian Tang ◽  
Miguela Caniza ◽  
Jean-Michel Heraud ◽  
Evelyn Koay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Viral Infections ◽  
Disease Incidence ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Outdoor Climate ◽  
Temperature And Humidity ◽  
Respiratory Viral Infections ◽  
Indoor And Outdoor

The incidence of several respiratory viral infections has been shown to be related to climate. Because humans spend most of their time indoors, measures of indoor climate, rather than outdoor climate, may be better predictors of disease incidence and transmission. Therefore, understanding the relationship between indoor and outdoor climate will help illuminate their influence on the seasonality of diseases caused by respiratory viruses. Indoor-outdoor relationships between temperature and humidity have been documented in temperate regions, but little information is available for tropical regions, where seasonal patterns of respiratory viral diseases differ. We have examined indoor-outdoor correlations of temperature, relative humidity (RH), and absolute humidity (AH) over a 1-year period in each of seven tropical cities. Across all cities, the average monthly indoor temperature was 25±3°C (mean ± standard deviation) with a range of 20–30°C. The average monthly indoor RH was 669% with a range of 50–78%, and the average monthly indoor AH was 153 g/m3 with a range of 10–23 g/m3. Indoor AH and RH were linearly correlated with outdoor AH when the air-conditioning (AC) was off, suggesting that outdoor AH may be a good proxy of indoor humidity in the absence of AC. All indoor measurements were more strongly correlated with outdoor measurements as distance from the equator increased. Such correlations were weaker during the wet season, especially when AC was in operation. These correlations will provide insight for assessing the seasonality of respiratory viral infections using outdoor climate data, which is more widely available than indoor data, even though transmission of these diseases mainly occurs indoors.

scholarly journals The efficiency of a dynamically insulated wall in the presence of air leakages

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-94
Author(s):  
Angela Kalagasidis-Sasic
Keyword(s):  
System Analysis ◽  
Ventilation System ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Outdoor Climate ◽  
Dynamic Insulation ◽  
Building Components ◽  
Heat And Moisture ◽  
Alternative Designs ◽  
Indoor And Outdoor

The movement of air in and through the building envelope often plays a leading role in the transport of heat and moisture into the building. It is caused by pressure and temperature variations around the building envelope inbuilt ventilation system, occupancy, etc. In order to improve the energy consumption, alternative designs for the ventilation systems are considered. One of them is a dynamically insulated wall as an inlet unit for the supplying air. In order to predict the performance of a dynamically insulated wall, it is necessary to make an analysis of the building as a system. This paper presents such system analysis which takes into account the interaction between the building components and indoor and outdoor climate, both in terms of the air leakage and heat and mass transfer to and from the building components. It is shown that, in the presence of air leakages (unintentional openings) in the enclosure of the building, the efficiency of the dynamic insulation is significantly decreased.

Short-term Measurements of Indoor Environmental Quality in Selected Offices – Case Study

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludmila Meciarova ◽  
Silvia Vilcekova ◽  
Eva Kridlova Burdova ◽  
Ilija Zoran Apostoloski ◽  
Danica Kosicanova
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Air ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Healthy Environment ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
The One

Decent quality of indoor air is important for health and wellbeing of building users. We live, work and study in indoors of various types of buildings. Often people are exposed to pollutants at higher concentrations than these that occur out-doors. Continual investigation of indoor air quality is needed for ensuring comfort and healthy environment. Measuring and analysis of occurrence of physical, chemical and biological factors is the first step for suggestion of optimization measures. Inside school buildings there are often inadequate indoor climate conditions such as thermal comfort parame-ters or ventilation. The aim of this study was determination of indoor environmental quality in selected offices in the building of elementary school in Slovakia. The values of operative temperature were not within the optimum range of values for the warm period of the year in one of the monitored offices. The intensity of illumination was lower in the two offices. Low levels of particulate matters were measured except the one office where permissible value was exceeded by 7.6%.

scholarly journals The Analysis of Outdoor Climate, Moist Air Enthalpy and their Relation to Cooling Energy Consumption in the Tropics

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.35) ◽  
pp. 254
Author(s):  
Waraporn Rattanongphisat ◽  
Anantachai Suwannakom
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Correlation Coefficient ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Outdoor Temperature ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Outdoor Climate ◽  
Enthalpy Difference ◽  
One Year ◽  
The Tropics

The air conditioned auditorium classroom was monitored for energy consumption by a monitoring platform. One year collected data from energy consumption and indoor climate monitoring systems and outdoor climate data in Phitsanulok province, Thailand, where its climate classified as the tropics, was employed to determine their relation by regression analysis. The analysis of climate data showed that the outdoor temperature above 26 oC was accounted for 70% of the year this emphasizes on cooling requirement. Furthermore, the hourly cooling energy consumption ranged from 8.1 to 10.3 kWh for indoor air temperature between 20 oC and 32 oC.  The higher outdoor temperature causes the greater cooling energy consumption. The correlation between outdoor temperature and cooling energy consumption with linear regression showed the correlation coefficient of 0.38 while the correlation between temperature difference and enthalpy difference of the outdoor and indoor found the correlation coefficient of 0.71. This pointed out that the outdoor tropical climate highly affected to the cooling energy demand.

scholarly journals Human indoor climate preferences approximate specific geographies

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 180695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael G. Just ◽  
Lauren M. Nichols ◽  
Robert R. Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Direct Selection ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Human Engineering ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Dissimilarity Index ◽  
Outdoor Climate ◽  
Construction Mechanics ◽  
Home Construction ◽  
The Usa

Human engineering of the outdoors led to the development of the indoor niche, including home construction. However, it is unlikely that domicile construction mechanics are under direct selection for humans. Nonetheless, our preferences within indoor environments are, or once were, consequential to our fitness. The research of human homes does not usually consider human evolution, and, therefore, we are without previous predictions about indoor climate preference. We worked with citizen scientists to collect indoor climate data from homes ( n = 37) across the USA. We then compared these data to recent global terrestrial climate data (0.5° grid cells, n = 67 420) using a climate dissimilarity index. We also compared some climate-related physiological parameters (e.g. thermoneutral zone (TNZ)) between humans and a selection of non-human primates. On average, our study homes were most similar in climate to the outdoor conditions of west central Kenya. We found that the indoor climates of our study homes largely matched the TNZ of humans and other primates. Overall, we identified the geographical distribution of the global outdoor climate that is most similar to the interiors of our study homes and summarized study home indoor climate preferences.

Evaluation of an indoor environmental quality model for very small residential units

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwok Wai Mui ◽  
Tsz Wun Tsang ◽  
Ling Tim Wong ◽  
Yuen Ping William Yu
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Environmental Parameters ◽  
Small Variation ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Quality Model ◽  
Small Unit ◽  
Residential Units ◽  
The One

This study investigates the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) responses from occupants living in very small residential units that are unique to Hong Kong. Through the changes in environmental parameters, including thermal, indoor air quality, visual and aural, the study demonstrates that the overall IEQ acceptance in these units is different from the one in general residential building environments. Results show that occupants of these units are more sensitive to warmth and operative temperature change as compared to occupants of general residential buildings. A small variation of thermal acceptance suggests that the small unit occupants have already developed certain degree of tolerance to hot conditions. The adaptation to the reality of a hot environment is also reflected in the overall IEQ acceptance. It is believed that very small space residents have developed tolerance and adaptation to an unchangeable reality, changing environmental conditions does not necessarily alter their acceptance of individual IEQ aspects and overall IEQ.

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