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Dwelling’s energy saving through the experimental study and modeling of technological interventions in a cold temperate climate of Argentina

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Abstract

The present work analyzes the potential of technological and economically feasible interventions performed to decrease the energy consumption in the building sector of the city of Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina (latitude 36° 27′ S and longitude 64° 27′ W). The overall aim of our study is to assess the thermal and energy behavior of a compact conventional construction dwelling in a cold temperate climate zone through in situ measurements, interviews with occupants, and modeling. The specific objectives are to analyze the results of experimental thermal energy monitoring in extreme weather seasons, to audit occupants’ use habits, to simulate and weigh the monitoring real data, to obtain the dwelling’s thermo-physical model, to study the interventions potential through low-energy design strategies (conservation and solar gain), and to carry out an economic analysis of the proposals. The results showed that an envelope with thermal insulation is feasible from the economic point of view when considering neighboring countries’ cost of natural gas (NG). In Argentina, the low value per m3 of NG entails recovering the investment aimed at improving the envelopes’ thermal energy behavior 64 years later, three times the envelopes’ thermal insulation life cycle.

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Notes

  1. Exposure factor (Fe) = exposed area / envelope area, where the envelope area includes all the exterior surfaces of a building including all external additions, e.g., chimneys, bay windows, etc. The exposed area accounts for the exterior surfaces without party walls (Czajkowski and Gómez 1994).

  2. The compactness index is defined by Mascaro (1983) as the relationship between the perimeter of a circle and the perimeter of the project. (Ic) = perimeter of circle / perimeter of project × 100 (Czajkowski and Gómez 1994).

  3. IRAM-1793 (2003) is a standard on buildings’ thermal insulation (thermal insulating materials; insulation thickness of use; vocabulary and criteria of application). It evaluates the insulation quality. Level A: avoids condensation; level B: reasonable energy efficiency and comfort; level C: good comfort quality (minimum difference of temperature between inside surface and inside air).

    IRAM-11605 (1996 Mod. 2002, 2004) is a standard that evaluates the thermal conditioning of buildings, its habitability conditions, and the maximum values of thermal transmittance in opaque enclosures. It defines three comfort levels in descending order: A: recommended, B: medium, and C: minimum, for each maximum values of thermal transmittance in summer and winter conditions. In order to comply with the norm, the thermal transmittance of the ceilings, walls, and floors must be less than or equal to the maximum permissible thermal transmittance “U value max adm” corresponding to level B. The verification must be done simultaneously in summer and winter conditions, except for bioenvironmental area V and VI (IRAM-11603 1996) standards, where it is only required to comply with the winter condition. For summer conditions, the permissible maximum values are defined depending on the heat flux directions (descending in ceilings and horizontal in walls) and according to each bioenvironmental area. These U values are given for all items whose outer surface presents solar radiation absorption coefficient between 0.6 and 0.8. For coefficients lower than 0.6, the U value increases 20% in walls and 30% in ceilings, and for superiors to 0.8, the value decreases 15 and 20%, for walls and ceilings, respectively. In winter conditions, the permissible maximum values are given according to the outdoor design temperature obtained by subtracting 4.5 °C to the sites’ average minimum temperature.

  4. An unstructured interview or non-directive interview is an interview in which questions are not prearranged Rogers, 1945).

  5. SIMEDIF needs the building to be divided into thermal zones. A zone is a building space that can be considered isothermal (i.e., a zone can be a group of various rooms in the building or a part of a room). Thus, each zone has a unique temperature whose temporal evolution is determined by the software, using the building data, materials, location, orientation, ambient temperature, and solar irradiance on horizontal surface in the simulation period. Those zones are connected to each other and with the environment by elements that have any of the following thermal characteristics.

    • Storage and heat transfer by conduction, such as brick walls, adobe walls, and concrete walls. These elements are called massive walls.

    • Storage into a uniform temperature mass such as water walls where the water is supposed to convect and has a uniform temperature.

    • Heat transfer by conduction without storage, such as wood and expanded polystyrene. In SIMEDIF, these elements are called lightweight walls.

    • Heat transfer by conduction with two heat transfer coefficients (day and night), such as windows with night insulation. These elements—windows—do not describe to solar gain or ventilation.

    • Heat transfer by convection, such as openings in the walls that allow a convective air exchange. These elements are doors and vents in SIMEDIF.

    An energy balance is expressed at each node for which the temperature is to be determined. These nodes are of two different types: massive nodes (i.e., the nodes on massive walls and water walls) and non-massive nodes (i.e., the nodes on air and lightweight walls).

    The program calculates the temperatures T i (t) inside and on massive wall surfaces by dividing the wall, that can be made of different materials (characterized by their conductivity k, density ρ, and specific heat to constant pressure c p ), into a number of layers defined by the user, and applying the heat transfer equations in one dimension to each layer. The building surfaces are described by an absorption coefficient α, and they can receive solar radiation I(t) on all its surface or on a smaller area A R . The heat transfer between a building surface and the surrounding air is described with a heat transfer coefficient h (W/m2°C), which includes convection and radiation.

    The finite-difference explicit method is used to replace the time and spatial derivatives by finite differences. The result is a set of equations for massive nodes. The temperature at time t + Δt can be evaluated from temperatures at the previous time t. This set of equations constitutes an initial value problem. Initial conditions, consisting of the starting storage mass temperatures and air temperatures, must be specified.

    The room temperature T r (t) at t + Δt is computed from the heat balance equation valued in the previous instant t. In this balance equation, the air renewals in the room, inner heat gains, and heat transfer due to the different elements connecting the room with other zones in the building and with outdoors are considered.

    The software calculates the hourly zone temperature by using the building data, materials, site, orientation, outdoor temperature, and solar irradiance on horizontal surface. The geometrical data is obtained from the construction drawings and the thermal properties of materials from tables commonly available in the heat transfer literature. The hourly outdoor temperature and solar irradiance is monitored and recorded in a text file that is read by the program.

    Convective-radiative heat transfer coefficients are estimated through the dimensional equation:

    $$ h=5.7+3.8v $$

    where v is the wind speed in m/s and h is the heat transfer coefficient in W/m2°C. This equation includes the effects of free convection and radiation, as Duffie and Beckman (1991) pointed out. The monitored mean wind velocity was 1.6 m/s; thus, a heat transfer coefficient of 12 W/m2 °C was imposed on external surfaces. On internal surfaces, convective-radiative heat transfer coefficients of 8 and 6 W/m2 °C (for surfaces with and without solar gain, respectively) were imposed. These values are found to give accurate adjustments of monitored data, based on the authors’ own experience on building thermal simulation.

  6. Volumetric heat loss coefficient (G value) = the total heat loss of a building through the envelope and ventilation divided by the heated volume and the temperature at which the loss occurs. The coefficient is calculated according to

    $$ G=\sum Km\times Sm+\sum Kv\times Sv+\sum \gamma Kr\times Sr+ Kp\times P\times \gamma +\sum Kr\times Sr/V+0.35\times n=\mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{m}}^3\kern0.5em \mathrm{K} $$

    Km: thermal transmittance of walls in contact with external ambient (W/m2°C); S: surface area (m2); Kv: thermal transmittance of glazing; Kr: corrected thermal transmittance of envelope (opaque or transparent) in contact with non-heating spaces; γ: 0.5 (in contact with heating spaces); γ: 1 (other cases); Kp: thermal transmittance of floor; P: perimeter of the floor; β β : 1 m; 0.35 air specific heat (W/hm3°C); V: volume of heating spaces; n: average ventilation rate per hour (ach) (IRAM-11604 2001).

  7. Base coat is a cementitious material with polymer additive. It is used as an adhesive and as a coating base on thermal insulation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro Experimental de la Vivienda Económica (CEVE)—CONICET, Igualdad 3585, 5003, Cordoba Capital, Cordoba, Argentina

    Eugenia Sipowicz, Halimi Sulaiman & Dante Pipa

  2. CONICET, Av. Spinetto 785, 6300, Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina

    Celina Filippín

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  1. Eugenia Sipowicz
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  2. Halimi Sulaiman
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  3. Celina Filippín
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Correspondence to Eugenia Sipowicz, Halimi Sulaiman or Celina Filippín.

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Sipowicz, E., Sulaiman, H., Filippín, C. et al. Dwelling’s energy saving through the experimental study and modeling of technological interventions in a cold temperate climate of Argentina. Energy Efficiency 11, 975–995 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-017-9572-x

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