Predicting natural ventilation flows in whole buildings. Part 2: The Esherick House

In an effort to address residential energy needs and find ways to improve energy utilization of homes, heating and passive cooling was examined by using computational fluid dynamics. The Esherick House, whose spatial composition was intentionally designed for natural ventilation, was modeled and simulated for different environmental conditions. The simulations were used to examine spatial layout effects on the ability of natural ventilation to maintain a comfortable thermal environment. Results for the heating and passive cooling scenarios compared the effects of the temperature and velocity fields when the environmental conditions were changed. For a typical summer day, it was found that the entire house cooled quickly when a breeze was modeled to enter a few windows, both with and without solar heating. The heating scenario for a winter day modeled the two fireplaces, one located on the first floor in the great room and one on the second floor in the master bedroom. It was found that the temperatures on the second floor were too high and too low on the first floor for acceptable levels of thermal comfort.