Regresar

Assessment of the Thermal Behavior in Social Housing in Hot Humid Climate in Ecuador

Abstract:

Climate change has created the need of designing efficient and sustainable housing with acceptable thermal environments for occupants. Consequently, policies that guarantee the compliance with these standards, especially for the most vulnerable populations living in hot climates are required. In this sense, this document aims to evaluate whether the compliance with NEC-HS-EE is sufficient to provide acceptable thermal environments inside naturally ventilated dwellings in very hot humid climates. For this purpose, an experimental measurement of the internal conditions, surface temperatures of the envelope and meteorological variables of a social housing located in Guayaquil – Ecuador, which complies with the regulations, is performed. Results indicate that the roof has the largest range between external and internal surface temperature compared to other envelope elements, 78 and 85 ℃ respectively. The internal air temperature varies between 25 ℃ and 36 ℃, which is higher than the outside temperature in 99% of the time. In addition, the quality of the thermal environment was evaluated using adaptive models of ANSI/ASHRAE 55 and EN 15251 standards. The dwelling had acceptable thermal conditions according to EN15251 for category III buildings. However, 13.9% of occupancy hours exceeded the limit defined by ASHRAE 55. It was also shown that the envelope does not adapt to climatic conditions, despite complying with local regulations, therefore it is necessary to define comfort criteria that adapt to local conditions.