Building and climate influence on the balance temperature of buildings

In this paper, the fact that the balance temperature varies for different types of buildings is evaluated and discussed. An explicit method to add useful hourly solar heat to the degree-hour formalism directly from building and climate data is presented. This also leads to a straightforward definition of the solar utilisation factor. Results from taking solar energy into account are compared with results from not taking solar energy into account demonstrating large deviations. The formalism is compared with a dynamic building simulation program (DEROB-LTH). The effect on the balance temperature when changing several building parameters is analysed in order to illustrate the errors of using a fixed balance temperature in the degree-hour methods for different buildings. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.