The impact of snow and soil freezing for commonly used foundation types in a subarctic climate

Abstract

Heat losses from a building foundation are affected by both the surrounding conditions and the surrounding soil properties. These include many factors that complicate the analysis of heat loss, such as thermal storage, snow and soil freezing. The effect of snow and soil freezing was studied with a 3D simulation model in a subarctic climate.The heat losses from the most commonly used foundation types in Sweden were studied. This paper shows that it is possible to achieve a good thermal estimation of the air temperatures in a crawl space, with an average difference of 0.4 °C compared with the validation data over a year. Snow and soil freezing reduce the annual heat losses through the different foundation types by 7–10% and the maximum heat loss rate by 13–25%. In order to describe the heat transfer correctly, snow must be included in the calculations, while soil freezing has only a minor impact. The 3D model implemented in this study shows a significant impact on the soil temperatures when these parameters are included.For a subarctic climate, the commonly used calculation methods based on the European standard ISO 13370 are not thorough enough to calculate the heat transfer through a foundation accurately.