Understanding the challenges of determining thermal comfort in vernacular dwellings: A meta-analysis

Abstract

• Challenges in evaluating thermal comfort and modelling vernacular dwellings intertwine. • These entail inadequate current standards, lack of framework, and faulty modelling. • Inaccurate modelling linked to inconsistent validation, imprecise data, and software limitations. • Current comfort models must predict the possibility of adjusting their thresholds. • Creating a hygrothermal model calibration standard is key for validating vernacular heritage. The thermal comfort assessment of vernacular dwellings, as well as their inherently linked thermal dynamic modelling process, present specific challenges which remain unaddressed in the literature. The overarching purpose of this review is to identify and analyse the main methods and challenges in thermal comfort evaluation and modelling of vernacular dwellings and recommend pathways for future improvement. The main challenges found regarding thermal comfort evaluation intertwine with those of modelling vernacular dwellings. These are: i. the inadequacy of current standards; ii. the use of steady-state approaches despite evidence of their inadequacy; iii. the lack of a clear monitoring framework and insufficient occupant surveying; iv. increased uncertainty from imprecise or unfeasible in situ monitoring; v. inaccurate modelling, due to: a lack of consistent methodology and guidelines for hygrothermal model calibration; imprecise input data and; inherent software limitations in modelling vernacular elements. The main recommendations identified through this analysis include the improvement of current comfort standards and models based on further long-term field studies and the possibility of adjusting their thresholds, the development of a common monitoring framework and which parameters to focus on, and the creation of a standard on hygrothermal model calibration entailing the most adequate indexes and variables.