Center for the Built Environment

A manual method for determining the effectiveness of cooling strategies and for sizing ventilative openings in buildings is described. It allows for a fairly rapid assessment of the natural cooling potential of the climate, and assists with the determination of: the most appropriate design for the building envelope, whether heating or mechanical cooling systems are required, and whether a mechanical ventilation system is required as a backup to natural ventilation.

In the case of ventilative cooling, the method also assists the designer with the design of the building’s orientation, shape, and ventilative openings.

The method uses binned weather data contained in the Summary of Meteorological Observations, Surface (SMOS) and Revised Uniform Summary of Surface Weather Observations (RUSSWO).

Many new criteria on acceptable comfort conditions needed to be assembled for the described procedure. For some of these there was little published precedent and further work is indicated.