- Author
- Arens, E. A. | Carroll, W. L.
- Title
- Geographical Variation in the Heating and Cooling Requirements of a Typical Single-Family House, and Correlation of These Requirements to Degree Days. Building Science Series.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Washington, DC
- Sponsor
- Energy Research and Development Administration, Washington, DC Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, DC
- Report
- NBS BSS 116, November 1978,
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Contract
- E(49-1)-3800
- Keywords
- heat load | cooling load | houses
- Identifiers
- degree days; energy consumption; heat consumption; energy requirements; heating load; energy conservation
- Abstract
- The report has three main purposes: First, it assesses Test Reference Year (TRY) hourly climate data tapes to determine how well they represent long-term average climate when used for estimating average annual heating and cooling requirements. The report presents a method to adjust heating and cooling requirements that are computed using TRY data, in order to make them represent long-term average heating and cooling requirements. Second, the report quantifies the geographic variation of annual heating and cooling requirements across the U.S. by computing the heating and cooling requirements of a typical ranch-style residence for the 8760 hours of each of the 60 TRY tapes, and adjusting the results by the method described above. Third, the effectiveness of degree-day data for predicting these computed annual heating and cooling requirements is examined, and the variability of heating and cooling requirements within degree-day 'zones' of 1000 degree day width is presented.