Designing Compressorless Houses for California Transition Climates

J. Huang, G. Loisos,* S. Ubbelohde*

*Department of Architecture, University of California at Berkeley.

The aim of the multi-year project "Alternatives to Compressive Cooling" is to develop and demonstrate cost-effective residential building designs for California transition climates-inland areas between the coast and the Central Valley-where non-compressor cooling is technologically feasible but where the use of mechanical air conditioning is becoming more prevalent.

In July 1995, a design workshop was held at the Pacific Energy Center in San Francisco, which included 20 invited architects, contractors, and students, as well as the entire LBNL research team. The research team summarized its analysis of the cooling needs in the transition climates, stressing the applicability of such alternative cooling strategies as minimizing solar heat gain, increasing the building thermal mass, mechanical and natural ventilation, evaporative cooling, and improved controls. Designers at the workshop divided into four teams to produce designs for four housing scenarios: high-density detached, standard lot detached (see Figure), move-up/luxury, and zero lot line housing.

Figure. Total resource cost of residential new construction program energy savings.

To receive feedback on the thermal performance of their proposed designs, each team was provided with a PC-based design tool that used a spreadsheet program to invoke detailed DOE-2 design-day simulations. This tool showed the maximum temperature the proposed designs would reach during the two hottest periods of the year, as well as indicating the need for air conditioning.

Since this tool is easy to use, the teams could fine-tune their designs to maintain indoor comfort at minimum costs.

The workshop produced prototypical building designs that are now being refined with detailed parametric thermal and cost-effectiveness analyses. The final building designs are expected to be finished in the spring of 1996.

References

Huang YJ, Warner JL, Feustel HE, Treidler B, Winkelmann FC, Buhl WF. Technical Issues Related to the Analysis of Ventilative Cooling Strategies. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Report No. LBID-2088, 1995.

Meldem R, Winkelmann FC. Comparison of DOE-2 with Measurements in the Pala Test Houses. Final Report to CIEE. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1995.

Loisos G, Ubbelohde S. Design Workshop. Project Summary to CIEE. University of California, Berkeley, 1995.

Huang YJ, Zhang H. Analysis of Climatic Conditions and Preliminary Assessment of Alternative Cooling Strategies for Houses in California Transition Climate Zones. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Report No. LBL-36177, 1995.

Huang YJ. A Simplified Tool for the Design of Compressorless Houses. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Report No. LBL-38138, 1995.

| Return to Contents | Return to Previous Paper | Next Paper |