Heat Gain Study of a Residential Building in Hot-Dry Climatic Zone on Basis of Three Cooling Load Methods

The paper presents the study on theoretical heat gain for a residential building located in hot-dry climatic zone of India. The location is city Kota (25.100 N, 75.830 E). To determine heat gain, three different methods have been used. The aim of the paper is to study the heat gains and also to compare the three different methods. First method is CLTD/GLF method which is taken from ASHRAE 1997, second method is CLF/SCL/CLTD method which also taken from ASHRAE 1997 and third method is RLF method which is taken from ASHRAE 2013. After that comparative study has been done of all three methods. For the study a typical middle income group residential house has been considered. The model house is taken of size 12 m x 15 m with three windows of size 1 m x 1m each and one door of size 1 m x1.5 m. The walls are brick wall and roof is taken of RCC. From the analysis it is found that CLTD/GLF method predicts heat gain towards lower side whereas CLTD/SCL/CLF method values are higher and RLF values lies in between being more close to CLTD/SCL/CLF method. An important point to notice on comparison of results is that all methods predict around 50% heat gain through roof for this building structure. Another major contribution to heat gain (around 30%) is through walls. The window to wall ratio for the building is 1.9% and therefore the effect of heat gain through windows is only around 8%. Other factors contribute only a minor percentage to the overall heat gain. Thus, from the results it can be concluded that in order to reduce the heat gain and cooling load, major attention must be paid on roof and wall heat gain along with the other factors. Suitable passive measures can be identified on the basis of heat gain study.