Design and thermal modeling of a residential building

Abstract

Recent trends of green energy upgrade in commercial buildings show promise for application to residential houses as well, where there are potential energy-saving benefits of retrofitting the residential heating system from single-zone to multi-zone temperature control. The objective of this thesis is to design a physical model to simulate the thermal profile of a residential building with a conventional single-zone central heating system. A scale model of a 2-story house was designed and constructed at 1/20 of the length scale of an average lifesize house, with an external heater and five temperature sensors connected to Vernier LabPro for data acquisition. Comparison between scale model prediction and experimental result shows similarity in steady state values for temperature and characteristic heating/cooling time constants. This thesis is an important first step toward designing a model house for multi-zone heating studies.