CH-81-18-1 -- Comparison of Calculated Hourly Cooling Load and Attic Temperature with Measured Data for a Houston Test House PDF

During the summer and autumn of 1977, NBS conducted attic ventilation experiments in 3 test houses in Houston, TX. Hourly cooling loads were measured, together with indoor/outdoor climatic data, to allow precise comparison between the computer-simulated values with those measured values. In this paper, measured hourly cooling loads as well as attic temperature of one of the test houses were compared with those determined by the detailed heat balance simulation calculation used in NBSLD, the National Bureau of Standards heating/cooling load determination program. Measured cooling loads for a steady 3-day period were also compared with those determined by two other public domain energy simulation programs, DOE-2 and BLAST-2.

In spite of several arbitrary assumptions employed for the simulation of the actual construction details and operation of the test house, generally good agreements were obtained between the calculated and observed cooling loads.