Thermal comfort evaluation using different glazing technologies in an energy model of rural housing in a cold climate

Abstract

Building energy efficiency, consumption and comfort are aspects to be evaluated in the energy simulation of buildings (BES). However, their results deviate from reality leading to the need to improve their accuracy through calibration. In this regard, a rural house located in a cold climate at more than 3000 meters above sea level, is energetically modeled with its subsequent calibration and evaluation of thermal comfort. The study is developed in four stages, starting with the monitoring of climatological variables and followed by the house energy modeling. Subsequently, manual and iterative calibration is conducted by means of statistical comparison and scatter plots. In this way, a model with more than 80% accuracy between monitored and simulated data is achieved. Based on the previously calibrated model, the thermal comfort is evaluated using different glazing technologies and then, the number of hours for two levels of thermal sensation are evaluated (comfortable and not comfortable). For this purpose, statistical methods such as predicted mean vote (PMV) and predicted percentage of dissatisfied (PPD) are used, which are included in the Design Builder software. This study identified that single bronze glazing technology increased thermal comfort hours by 14.2% with respect to the case study, allowing the development of a methodology that improves thermal comfort through passive heating in rural dwellings in cold climates.