Investigation of Indoor Thermal Environment, Air Quality, and Energy Consumption in New Detached Houses of Wood-Frame Construction in a Small City in Japan
EnvironmenJ International, Vol. 16, pp. 37 - 52, 1990 0160-4120/90 $3.00 +.00 Printed in the U.S.A. All rights reserved. Copyright @ 1990 Pergamon Press pie INVESTIGATION OF INDOOR THERMAL ENVIRONMENT, AIR QUALITY, AND ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN NEW DETACHED HOUSES OF WOOD-FRAME CONSTRUCTION IN A SMALL CITY IN JAPAN Hiroshi Yoshino, Hiroshi Matsumoto, and Kazushi Makita Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan Fusao Hasegawa Tohoku Institute of Technology, Sendai, Japan Yasuo Utsumi Miyagi National College of Technology, Natori, Japan Shin-ichi Akabayashi Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan EI 87-151 (Receitied 9 Not1ember 1987; Accepted 7 February 1989) The authors investigated indoor thermal environment, airtightness, indoor air quality, and energy consumption in thirteen new houses of wood-frame construction in a local city of Japan in the winter of 1985. All houses had thermally-insulated walls, ceilings, and floors, except for one house which had a concrete floor without insulation under the floor. Eight houses had concrete floors on the first level of the structure. Seven houses out of eight had hot-water pipes embedded in the concrete for floor heating and thermal insulation under the floor on the grade. Three houses out of seven also had fan coil units in the bedrooms on the second floor. The six other houses without floor heating had oil or gas local space heaters. The authors found differences in temperature profiles between the houses with floor heating and those with space heaters. The effective leakage area per floor area obtained by the fan pressurization method was distributed 2 2 from 3.8 to 16 cm /m • The concentration measurements of C02 and N02 in the living rooms showed that the two houses with unvented oil space heaters were more polluted than the other houses.
[Show full text]