Heat-flow variability of suspended timber ground floors: Implications for in-situ heat-flux measuring

Pelsmakers, S, Fitton, R ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7514-6819, Biddulph, P, Swan, W ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8780-6557, Croxford, B, Stamp, S, Calboli, FCF, Shipworth, D, Lowe, R and Elwell, CA 2017, 'Heat-flow variability of suspended timber ground floors: Implications for in-situ heat-flux measuring' , Energy and Buildings, 138 , pp. 396-405.

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Abstract

Reducing space heating energy demand supports the UK’s legislated carbon emission reduction targets and requires the effective characterisation of the UK’s existing housing stock to facilitate retrofitting decision-making. Approximately 6.6 million UK dwellings pre-date 1919 and are predominantly of suspended timber ground floor construction, the thermal performance of which has not been extensively investigated. This paper examines suspended timber ground floor heat-flow by presenting high resolution in-situ heat-flux measurements undertaken in a case study house at 15 point locations on the floor. The results highlight significant variability in observed heat-flow: point U-values range from 0.56 ± 0.05 to 1.18 ± 0.11 Wm−2 K−1. This highlights that observing only a few measurements is unlikely to be representative of the whole floor heat-flow and the extrapolation from such point values to whole floor U-value estimates could lead to its over- or under- estimation. Floor U-value models appear to underestimate the actual measured floor U-value in this case study. This paper highlights the care with which in-situ heat-flux measuring must be undertaken to enable comparison with models, literature and between studies and the findings support the unique, high-resolution in-situ monitoring methodology used in this study for further research in this area.

Item Type:	Article
Schools:	Schools > School of the Built Environment > Centre for Urban Processes, Resilient Infrastructures & Sustainable Environments
Journal or Publication Title:	Energy and Buildings
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0378-7788
Funders:	Non funded research
Depositing User:	Professor Richard Fitton
Date Deposited:	03 Jan 2017 11:55
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2022 21:35
URI:	https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/41109

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