Long-Term Results from Evaluation of Advanced New Construction Packages in Test Homes: Lake Elsinore, California.

摘要

This report presents the long-term evaluation results from a hot-dry climate project that examines the room-to-room temperature conditions that exist in a high performance envelope, the performance of a simplified air distribution system, and a comparison of modeled energy performance with measured energy use. The project, a prototype house built by K. Hovnanian Homes Ontario Group, is located in Lake Elsinore, Riverside County, California, and achieves a 50% level of whole-house source energy savings with respect to the Building America (BA) Benchmark Definition 2009 (Hendron and Engebrecht 2010). One purpose of the long-term monitoring of this project was to show to heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning contractors and mechanical system designers the performance benefits of this type of system, with the hope that they will incorporate these practices into their system designs moving forward. One year of temperature measurements in three rooms indicates that the temperature difference between the measured locations and the thermostat were within the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) Manual RS (Rutkowski 1997) recommendations 90.3% of the time in heating mode and 100% of the time in cooling mode. The air distribution system is operating efficiently with average delivered temperatures adequate to facilitate proper heating and cooling and only minor average temperature differences observed between the systems plenum and farthest register. The results show that the compact spider branch design provided adequate heating and cooling in addition to lower installation costs. Despite initial contractor resistance, this is a recommended design, and future research should investigate methods of outreach to mechanical installers and designers to encourage them to incorporate this design in their homes. Monitored energy use results for the house indicate that it is using less energy than predicted by modeling. A comparison of modeled to measured energy consumption by end use determined little agreement between modeled and measured values.