scholarly journals Improving the thermal integrity of new single-family detached residential buildings: Documentation for a regional database of capital costs and space conditioning load savings

1991 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.G. Koomey ◽  
J.E. McMahon ◽  
C. Wodley
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeleine Jean Craig

Using shower wastewater to flush toilets decreases the potable water demand of residential buildings, reducing pressure on existing water supplies. “Off- the-shelf” greywater reuse systems intended for single-family residential dwellings have recently become commercially available, but have variable field performance. A standard field testing methodology was developed and applied to a greywater reuse system installed in 23 homes in Southern Ontario. Performance was quantified by measuring the water balance, water quality, energy consumption, durability, maintenance requirements, installation process, economics and user satisfaction with the system. The tested system was found to save, on average, 40.9 litres per household per day, occasionally meet water quality guidelines and generally have less maintenance and durability issues than previous generations, resulting in satisfied users. However, due to low water rates and high capital costs, there is a need for government subsidization of these systems which will ultimately, reduce pressure placed on centralized water infrastructure.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-152
Author(s):  
Madeleine Craig ◽  
Russell Richman

Abstract Using shower wastewater to flush toilets decreases the potable water demand of residential buildings, reducing pressure on existing water supplies. ‘Off- the-shelf’ greywater reuse systems intended for single-family residential dwellings have recently become commercially available, but have variable field performance. A standard field testing methodology was developed and applied to a greywater reuse system installed in 22 homes in Southern Ontario. Performance was quantified by measuring the water balance, water quality, energy consumption, durability, maintenance requirements, installation process, economics and user satisfaction with the system. The tested system was found to save, on average, 40.9 litres per household per day, occasionally meet water quality guidelines and generally have less maintenance and durability issues than previous generations, resulting in satisfied users. However, due to low water rates and high capital costs, there is a need for government subsidization of these systems which will ultimately reduce pressure placed on centralized water infrastructure.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeleine Jean Craig

Using shower wastewater to flush toilets decreases the potable water demand of residential buildings, reducing pressure on existing water supplies. “Off- the-shelf” greywater reuse systems intended for single-family residential dwellings have recently become commercially available, but have variable field performance. A standard field testing methodology was developed and applied to a greywater reuse system installed in 23 homes in Southern Ontario. Performance was quantified by measuring the water balance, water quality, energy consumption, durability, maintenance requirements, installation process, economics and user satisfaction with the system. The tested system was found to save, on average, 40.9 litres per household per day, occasionally meet water quality guidelines and generally have less maintenance and durability issues than previous generations, resulting in satisfied users. However, due to low water rates and high capital costs, there is a need for government subsidization of these systems which will ultimately, reduce pressure placed on centralized water infrastructure.


Author(s):  
Eleni Agelidou ◽  
Martin Henke ◽  
Thomas Monz ◽  
Manfred Aigner

Residential buildings account for approximately one fifth of the total energy consumption and 12 % of the overall CO2 emissions in the OECD countries. Replacing conventional boilers by a co-generation of heat and power in decentralized plants on site promises a great benefit. Especially, micro gas turbine (MGT) based combined heat and power systems are particularly suitable due to their low pollutant emissions without exhaust gas treatment. Hence, the overall aim of this work is the development of a recuperated inverted MGT as heat and power supply for a single family house with 1 kWel. First, an inverted MGT on a Brayton cycle MGT was developed and experimentally characterized, in previous work by the authors. This approach allows exploiting the potential of using the same components for both cycles. As a next step, the applicability of the Brayton cycle components operated in inverted mode needs to be evaluated and the requirements for a component optimization need to be defined, both, by pursuing thermodynamic cycle simulations. This paper presents a parametrization and validation of in-house 1D steady state simulation tool for an inverted MGT, based on experimental data from the inverted Brayton cycle test rig. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to estimate the influence of every major component on the overall system and to identify the necessary optimizations. Finally, the component requirements for an optimized inverted MGT with 1 kWel and 16 % of electrical efficiency are defined. This work demonstrates the high potential of an inverted MGT for a decentralized heat and power generation when optimizing the system components.


1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 382-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bluestone

This essay explores the Mecca, one of Chicago's largest nineteenth-century apartment houses. Designed in 1891, the Mecca's innovative plan incorporated an exterior landscaped courtyard and two monumental interior atria. The form and meaning of these spaces diverged in important respects. The exterior courtyards appropriated aspects of the single-family residential form and domestic ideology. The interior atria relied on Chicago skyscraper models and their cosmopolitan approach to the possibilities of density. Exterior courtyards later proliferated, while atria appeared in only two other local residential buildings. Nevertheless, the Mecca's atria possessed a sense of place that deeply etched the building into Chicago's cultural and political landscape. The building became the subject of 1920s blues improvisation-the "Mecca Flat Blues." In the 1940s and 1950s tenants waged a decadelong Mecca preservation campaign. Housing rather than Chicago School aesthetics provided the preservationists with their point of departure. Race interesected with space and Mies van der Rohe's vision of modern urbanism to seal the Mecca's fate. The essay's methodology develops the social and cultural meaning of form. Moreover, it demonstrates the importance of pushing architectural history beyond the nexus of meaning created by original patrons and designers. We stand to learn a great deal about architectural and urban history by studying how people have defined and redefined, valued and devalued, their buildings, cities, and landscapes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Muhammad Usman ◽  
Georg Frey

The comprehensive approach for a building envelope design involves building performance simulations, which are time-consuming and require knowledge of complicated processes. In addition, climate variation makes the selection of these parameters more complex. The paper aims to establish guidelines for determining a single-family household’s unique optimal passive design in various climate zones worldwide. For this purpose, a bi-objective optimization is performed for twenty-four locations in twenty climates by coupling TRNSYS and a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-III) using the Python program. The optimization process generates Pareto fronts of thermal load and investment cost to identify the optimum design options for the insulation level of the envelope, window aperture for passive cooling, window-to-wall ratio (WWR), shading fraction, radiation-based shading control, and building orientation. The goal is to find a feasible trade-off between thermal energy demand and the cost of thermal insulation. This is achieved using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) through criteria importance using intercriteria correlation (CRITIC) and the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). The results demonstrate that an optimal envelope design remarkably improves the thermal load compared to the base case of previous envelope design practices. However, the weather conditions strongly influence the design parameters. The research findings set a benchmark for energy-efficient household envelopes in the investigated climates. The optimal solution sets also provide a criterion for selecting the ranges of envelope design parameters according to the space heating and cooling demands of the climate zone.


Author(s):  
Sinolichka Smilevska

From city quarter with urban villas, yard houses and pittoresque ambient values, Debar Maalo in Skopje in recent time, is turning into a construction site of the intense rise of the building mass and filling in on every potential void, where the typology of multifamily residential buildings is dominant. But, can it be different? The marginalized forms of single-family housing, once a dominant lifestyle in Debar Maalo, single family yard houses, houses with ground contact are the remains of a passed image of this city quarter that should be the referent milieu of this research. This typology of a low-rise residential structure, should represent the renovation tactics of the the single-family dwelling in this part of the city of Skopje. The creation process of the new urban landscape of housing with characteristics of a dense and low-rise structure will be through the forward two stages: analysis and design. The location of interest will be analysed through architectural project of a housing block with the typology of a low-rise housing structure that should provide high urban density of 120 houses per hectare. The suggested typology of the housing structure should provide housing that will meet the new lifestyles and will achieve diversity of the houses according to their size, structure, and comfort. This thesis should refer to the idea of rethinking and reminiscing on the elementary architectural city image, low rise housing structure typology as a building type at the level of the morphology of the city of Skopje.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1420326X2096115
Author(s):  
Jaime Resende ◽  
Marta Monzón-Chavarrías ◽  
Helena Corvacho

Buildings account for 34% of world energy consumption and about half of electricity consumption. The nearly/Net Zero Energy Building (nZEB/NZEB) concepts are regarded as solutions for minimizing this problem. The countries of Southern Europe, which included the nZEB concept recently in their regulatory requirements, have both heating and cooling needs, which adds complexity to the problem. Brazil may benefit from their experience since most of the Brazilian climate zones present significant similarities to the Southern European climate. Brazil recently presented a household energy consumption increase, and a growing trend in the use of air conditioning is predicted for the coming decades. Simulations with various wall and roof solutions following the Brazilian Performance Standard were carried out in a low standard single-family house in three different climate zones in order to evaluate thermal comfort conditions and energy needs. Results show that in milder climate zones, achieving thermal comfort with a low energy consumption is possible, and there is a great potential to achieve a net zero-energy balance. In the extreme hot climate zone, a high cooling energy consumption is needed to provide thermal comfort, and the implementation of a nearly zero-energy balance may be more feasible.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 02034 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Szul

The research aiming to check whether the output of currently installed boilers matches the use requirements together with estimation of their energy efficiency was carried out on a group of 84 single-family residential buildings located in rural areas. Heating and hot water energy needs were calculated for each building in order to determine the use requirements. This enabled verification whether the currently installed boilers match the actual use requirements in the buildings. Based on the calculations it was determined that the designed average boiler output in the group of buildings subject to analysis is 15.7 kW, whereas the mean rated output capacity of boilers installed therein is 25.4 kW. On average, the output capacity of the installed boilers exceeds the use requirements for the buildings by 60%. To calculate the energy efficiency of boilers, the mean annual boiler output capacity use coefficient was determined. For boilers selected on the basis of standard calculations, the mean coefficient is 0.47. For boilers currently in use it is 0.31, less than the above figure. The above calculations show that if boilers were correctly selected in compliance to the building needs, then the average estimated seasonal efficiency of 65% would be feasible. However, in the current state the achievable efficiency is approx. 55%.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document