European Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.27 No.2 (2009), pp.228-233 EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009 http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.

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Thermal Inertia Effect in Old Buildings

Orosa, J. A Department of Energy and M.P. University of A Corua Paseo de Ronda 51. P.C.:15011, A Corua. Spain E-mail: jaorosa@udc.es Tel: +34-981-167000-4320; Fax: +34-981-167007 Carpente T Department of Energy and M.P. University of A Corua Paseo de Ronda 51. P.C.:15011, A Corua. Spain Tel: +34-981-167000-4320; Fax: +34-981-167007 Abstract This paper discusses thermal inertia effect on indoor air conditions in Northwest of Spain buildings. In a previous paper [1, 2] we have demonstrated that permeable coverings improve indoor conditions in spite of the use of an air barrier and less permeable coverings such as wood or concrete. This theory would allow, with a more intelligent design, energy saving in indoor air renovation. Other authors [3] suggested that constructive systems with high thermal inertia provide more comfortable environment and buildings with low energy consumption as showed. For example, [5] showed that thermal inertia has an influence on the annual energy requirement fro heating of a house located in a country with a northern climate. By increasing the massive wood content at the inner surfaces of the construction, the thermal inertia is increased and the specific energy requirement is lower than it is for a lightweight construction. The lowest specific energy requirement is obtained with an extremely heavy concrete construction. Furthermore, Hed et al. [4] showed that phase change materials could be used to change the thermal inertia of buildings with a clear effect on indoor air temperatures during the day. These two effects must be analysed in different buildings constructions.

Keywords: Thermal inertia, buildings, school energy saving.

1. Introduction
Nowadays, thermal inertia is proposed as one passive method for energy saving in indoor ambiences. In particular, it is of special interest to characterize of the building as part of the installation of heating ventilation and air conditioning system. Its characterization will let an improvement of design process and, in consequence, of obtained indoor ambiences. In a previous paper [1, 2] we have demonstrated that permeable coverings improve indoor conditions in spite of the use of an air barrier and less permeable coverings such as wood or concrete. This theory would allow, with a more intelligent design, energy saving in indoor air renovation. Other authors [3] suggested that constructive systems with high thermal inertia provide more comfortable environment and buildings with low energy consumption as showed. For example, [5] showed that thermal inertia has an influence on the annual energy requirement fro heating of a house located in a

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country with a northern climate. By increasing the massive wood content at the inner surfaces of the construction, the thermal inertia is increased and the specific energy requirement is lower than it is for a lightweight construction. The lowest specific energy requirement is obtained with an extremely heavy concrete construction. Furthermore, Hed et al. [4] showed that phase change materials could be used to change the thermal inertia of buildings with a clear effect on indoor air temperatures during the day. These two effects must be analysed in different buildings constructions. In the last years software tools were employed to understand and predict these thermal inertia behaviour but they underestimated the energy consumption because its energy models ignore moisture. Actual HAM tools software could be employed to simulate indoor conditions and phenomena of material and energy transfer thought building envelopes and its effects on indoor conditions. In consequence, to test this software real sample data must be sampled and anlysed in accordance with ISO and ASHRAE Standards. Present paper shows the thermal inertia effects in the indoor energy efficiency and performance. The indoor and outdoor humidity and temperature have been monitored in seven schools. The indoor measurements have been taken in one classroom of each school, during part of winter and spring seasons. All schools have purely adventitious ventilation. The schools are located in A Corua and Ferrol from Northwest cost of Spain. Two schools will be considered for analysis, the older and the newer, because in other schools, the measures parameters values are between of them. One of the areas of the older school was built in 1890, but the other part was built in 1960. The new school was built in 1999.

2. Materials and
2.1. Old School (school 1) The classroom is located on the second floor of the old area of the school. Walls are 0.90 m thick with no insulation. The classroom has a volume of 210 m3, provided with 3 wood paint single pane windows and wood pine floor. The schedule occupation is 26 students and 1 teacher between 08:30 and 14:10 h, and 20 students and 1 teacher between 16:30 and 19:30 h, from Monday to Friday. The building has a central heating system that operates from 08:00 to 10:30 h and 16:30 to 18:30 h, during the period from 17/2 to 18/3. 2.2. New School The classroom is located on the first floor. Walls are thermally insulated by air space. The volume of the classroom is 150 m3, have 3 aluminium windows with double glazing and terrazzo floor. The schedule occupation is 25 students and 1 teacher from 08:30 to 14:10 h, Monday to Friday, and from 16:00 to 19:00 h on Tuesdays. Finally, the building is centrally heated from 08:00 to 10:30 h, during the period from 17/2 to 8/4. 2.3. Temperature and relative humidity Temperature and relative humidity were measured using an Innova 1221 data logger equipped with a temperature transducer MM0034, based on thermistor technology, and a humidity transducer MM0037, incorporating a light emitting diode (LED), a light sensitive transistor, a mirror, a cooling element and a thermistor. The following are additional technical information regarding data acquisition: Relative Humidity: Range, 0-95 % RH; Accuracy: 3 % RH Temperature: Range, -30.+ 50 C; Accuracy: 0.2C (0..+50 C).

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3. Methods
3.1. Temperature and Relative Humidity In accordance with ASHRAE Standard, measurements shall be made in occupied zones of the building at locations where the occupants are known to or are expected to spend their time and, in unoccupied rooms, the evaluator should make a good faith estimate of the most significant future occupant locations within the room and make appropriate measurements. If occupancy distribution cannot be estimated, then the measurement locations shall be in the center of the room or zone and 1.0 m inward from the center of each of the room's walls. In the case of exterior walls with windows, the measurement location should be 1.0 m inward from the center of the largest window. In either case, measurements should be taken in locations where the most extreme values of the thermal parameters are estimated or observed to occur but allowing a proper air circulation around measurement sensors with positions as described below. On the other hand, absolute humidity need only be determined at one location within the occupied zone in each occupied room due to there is no reason to expect large humidity variations within that space. In accordance with ASHRAE indications, the most representative classroom of each school was selected for monitoring. Transducers were hung in the middle of the classrooms and data has been gathered in Tiny tags data loggers which can store 7,600 readings. Finally, outdoor temperature and relative humidity was obtained from of closest local meteorological station. 3.2. Air Renovation Despite the fact that ASHRAE method to obtaion the air change of a building is grounded in a tracer gas like CO2 or SF6, in this practical case study we have employed the mois air of each indoor ambiences. This moist air will be related with the number of renovations for a constant moisture production from persons. In consequence, because there arent new humidity emissions by night, we weigh up humidity linear decrease in every classroom in accordance with Eq.1. ln C (0 ) ln C (1 ) N= (1)

N = air renovations per hour; C(0) = concentration in time = 0, m3/m3; C( 1 ) = concentration in time 1 , m3/m3; 1 = total time, h.

4. Results
4.1. Moist Air Properties

Outdoor data from of closest local meteorological station has been used for comparison purposes between indoor and outdoor conditions. In consequence, the outdoor annual average parameters on fourth last years were temperature 13.5 C; maximum temperature 18.7 C; minimum temperature 8.7 C; absolute maximum temperature 36 C; absolute maximum temperature -3.5 C; relative humidity 87.9 %.
Table 1: Outdoor/indoor dry bulb temperature (C) statistics.
Outdoor 11.5 5.5 26.46 -4.15 Indoor Old School 19.2 2.5 26.9 13.7 Indoor Old School 20.1 2.1 26.9 14.0

Average RMS deviation Maximum Minimum

Thermal Inertia Effect in Old Buildings

Table 2: Outdoor/indoor relative humidity (%) statistics.
Outdoor 85.85 15.13 100.0 28.9 Indoor Old School 59.1 7.5 78.9 33.9

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Average RMS deviation Maximum Minimum

Indoor Old School 53.2 6.2 73.8 29.7

Table 3:

Outdoor/indoor partial vapor pressure (Pa) statistics.

Outdoor 1186.40 332,8 2191.6 432.22 Indoor Old School 1327.9 225.9 2086.9 752.9 Indoor Old School 1266.8 243.3 2158.3 590.3

Average RMS deviation Maximum Minimum

4.2. Humidity sources

Humidity renovations have been estimated during the morning. The humidity emission from one person is round 26.74 g/h in old school and round 20.83 g/h in new school. This value could be influenced by the air renovation and infiltrations. New: N=0.0959 ach=14.38 m3/h Old: N=0.1583 ach=33.24 m3/h The water emission from floor mopping was estimated about 0.420 kg/day in the old school and 0.500 kg/day in the new school.
Figure 1: Weekly average temperature in old and new schools.
Temperature
22

Temperature (C)

20

18
Old school New school

16
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Day

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Figure 2: Weekly average vapor pressure in old and new schools.

Vapor pressure
1400 1350 1300 1250 1200 1150
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Vapor pressure (Pa)

Old school

New school

Day

5. Discussion
Indoor conditions in old school are closer to the outdoor ones probably due to the higher uncontrolled air infiltration through cracks in windows. This effect can be observed from plots of the weekly average temperature of Figure 1. There we can see that the temperature in the new school is generally higher than in the old probably due both to the thermal insulation of the walls and to lower infiltration rate. This trend is clearly observed during weekends, with the minimum being attained on Sundays. From Table 1, we can observe that the indoor dry bulb temperature in the new building is one degree centigrade higher than in the old and seven degrees higher than the outdoor temperature. On the other hand, the maximum temperature achieved during occupation is higher in old school, and its minimum during unoccupied periods is lower. This effect can clearly be observed during weekends. The instantaneous weekly variation of the temperature showed that the daily maximum can reach values as high as 26C and this maximum is followed by a swift temperature reduction with the temperature, reaching a minimum of 16C and 14C during weekends. According to Table 2, the relative humidity is 6% higher in the old building than in the new for a standard deviation of the same order of magnitude. This result is consistent with the higher partial vapor pressure noted in the old building, see Table 3. Finally we can conclude from the monthly instantaneous variation of the vapor pressure that the vapor pressure in old school is higher during February and March. This trend might be related to the higher thermal inertia of the walls in compared with the new building. The partial vapor pressure in the old building is higher than in the new and tends to attain values closer to those of the outdoor air during weekends and to diminish with the temperature, as we can see in Figure 2. Negative excess vapor pressures might be related to the hygroscopic inertia of the wall materials.

6. Conclusions
Old Buildings present a clear example of energy saving with its thermal inertia effect. In this example, central heating in old building only works from 08:00 to 10:300 a.m. and get the same effect than the new building with central heating working from 08:30 to 14:00. Other advantage of the higher thermal inertia of old building is that this kind of buildings presents the lower maximum and the higher minimum. This could be correlated with a better thermal comfort. During weekend the old building present a greater tendency to diminish its temperature as a consequence of the uncontrolled air infiltration through cracks in windows.

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Finally, we can conclude, in accordance with [6], that old buildings present a higher thermal inertia effect that can get energy saving during weekend and that this effect could be improved with a good maintenance of cracks. Moisture generation by persons has been estimated very similar than indications of the general bibliography for this kind of activity and age of students. The water emission from floor mopping was estimated as a poor humidity source and influence in the total emission sources. As a consequence of this, if we consider the humidity ratio increment during the morning we can conclude that the air renovation is very poor in both schools.

References
[1] [2] Orosa JA, Baalia A. (2008).Passive climate control in Spanish office buildings for long periods of time. Building and Environment. (2008), doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2007.12.001 Orosa JA, Baalia A.(2008). Improving PAQ and comfort conditions in Spanish office buildings with passive climate control. Building and Environment (2008), doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2008.04.013 Dornelles, K.A. and Roriz M. (2004). Thermal Inertia,comfort and energy consumption in buildings: A case study in Sao Paulo State-Brasil. International Journal for housing science and its applications. 28, part 2, pp. 153-162. Hed G. Use of phase change material for change of thermal inertia of buildings. (2003). Building Materials Technology. Centre for Built Environment. Sweden. Noren A., Akander J., Isft E., sderstrm O. (1999). The effect of thermal inertia on energy requirements in a Swedish Building- results Obtained with three calculation Swedish Buildingresults obtained with three calculation models. International Journal of Low Energy and Sustainable Buildngs. 1.1999. Roucoult J. M., Douzane O., Langlet T. (1999). Incorporation of thermal inertia in the aim of installing a natural nighttimes ventilation system in buildings. Energy and buildings 29. 1999. pp.129-133.

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