Temperature profiles and electric energy consumption for wood/Poly(vinyl chloride) composite and fibre cement board houses

Abstract

Temperature profiles of wood/poly(vinyl chloride) (WPVC) and fibre cement board (FCB) were studied under solar exposure for houses constructed at the same time. Wall temperatures of WPVC and FCB houses during both day-time and night-time were compared for three different seasons in Thailand, with and without air conditioning. Electric energy consumption (EEC) for the houses was also estimated for energy saving purpose. The temperature profiles indicate that during the winter season, the maximum exterior temperatures of WPVC and FCB houses under solar exposure moved from east to south and from west to north during the day-time while the maximum temperature was obtained at the southern direction. As expected, the differences in temperature between the exterior and interior walls with air conditioning were larger than without air conditioning. In the summer season, the maximum temperatures of WPVC and FCB houses moved from east to west and from north to south while the maximum temperature appeared at the eastern wall. For the rainy season, the temperature profile results including the effects of air conditioning and materials were more similar to those of the summer season. For all seasons, the exterior-interior temperature differences of WPVC house were larger than those of FCB house, regardless of the effects of air conditioning and direction, the maximum temperature differences (ΔT) between WPVC and FCB walls were 6.78 °C for winter season, 8.92 °C for summer season, and 6.72 °C for rainy season. This suggested that the WPVC material exhibited highly potential use as better housing insulator as compared with the FCB material. The EEC values clearly indicated that the WPVC house was more economical than the FCB house by 22–26%.