Side-by-side evaluation of a stressed-skin insulated-core panel house and a conventional stud-frame house. Final report

摘要

Side-by-side energy testing and monitoring was conducted on two houses in Louisville, KY between January--March 1993. Both houses were identical except that one house was constructed with conventional US 2 by 4 studs and a truss roof while the other house was constructed with stress-skin insulated core panels for the walls and second floor ceiling. Air-tightness testing included fan pressurization by blower door, hour long tracer tests using sulphur hexafluoride, and two-week long time-averaged tests using perfluorocarbon tracers. An average of all the air-tightness test results showed the SSIC panel house to have 22 percent less air infiltration than the frame house. Air-tightness testing resulted in a recommendation that both houses have a fresh air ventilation system installed to provide 0.35 air changes per hour continuously. Thermal insulation quality testing was by infrared imaging. Pressure differential testing resulted in recommendations to use sealed combustion appliances, and to allow for more return air flow from closed rooms. This can be accomplished by separate return ducts or transfer ducts which simply connect closed rooms to the main body with a short duct. The SSIC house UA was lower in both cases. By measurement, co-heating tests showed the SSIC panel house total UA to be 12 percent lower than the frame house. Short-term energy monitoring was also conducted for the two houses. A 17 day period of electric heating and a 14 day period of gas furnace heating was evaluated. Monitoring results showed energy savings for the panel house to be 12 percent during electric heating and 15 percent during gas heating. A comparison of the two monitoring periods showed that the lumped efficiency of the gas furnace and air distribution system for both houses was close to 80 percent. Simple regression models using Typical Meteorological Year weather data gave a preliminary prediction of seasonal energy savings between 14 and 20 percent.