Cold-Soak Testing Method Based Evaluation of Thermal Performance of a Typical Residential Dwelling

摘要

Thermal characteristics of two identical British-style residential houses were evaluated and compared to each other in this paper. The two houses were built in Scotland under the Scottish building regulation 2011. Thermal characteristic evaluation of the houses was accomplished by determining their heat loss coefficient and thermal mass potential. A practical heating measurement method was applied to evaluate heat loss coefficient before a thermal mass storage evaluation was carried out using a cold soak testing method. This cold-soak testing method is based on evaluation approach under the absence of effect of solar radiation that eliminates solar heat gain during the assessment period. Because of this, the uncertainty of analytical result could be reduced and the accuracy of evaluation result would be improved. The evaluation result indicated that heat loss coefficient of the two identical houses was almost the same while their thermal mass storage potential was quite similar with a small difference of 5.5% that is thought to be caused by a different number of heating systems installed in each house as well as small differences in either variability in materials or variability in the batch of material that the houses were made.