Heat Loss Calculations
Improving the Thermal Efficiency of Your Home
Heat Loss Calculations are used to create an accurate figure for the rate at which your home loses heat to the environment, and thus give a precise required power output for your heating system for it to be capable of keeping your home at a comfortable temperature.
These heat loss calculations take into account “Degree Day Data”, a representation of outside air temperature. Because a higher difference in temperature between your home and outside increases the rate at which energy will be lost through the fabric of the building, the lowest average temperature for your specific region is used in the calculations. This creates a “worst case scenario” within reason, to ensure that your heating system is capable of heating your home even when it is very cold outside.
To gather the data required to make these calculations, a survey of your home will need to be conducted. This involves using a laser measuring device to attain accurate dimensions of each room, and also investigating the makeup of the structure. This includes what materials have been used to build your house, where and how much insulation there is and the quality of the doors and windows.
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Once the data has been gathered, and the calculations made, a report is produced detailing the overall heat loss of your home, and also the individual heat loss of each room. This allows us to pinpoint the areas of your home with the worst thermal performance, and thereby advise you on which areas would benefit the most from improvements.
Once we have the report, we can make iterative changes to the structure of your home within the digital model, and log the effects that these changes produce on the overall heat loss. For example, we could increase the insulation in your loft space in the model, and see what effect that has on the overall heat loss of your home. Modelling several different changes, we can see what would be the most beneficial change to make, and then find the most cost effective solution to improving the thermal efficiency of your home.
We can then work with our wealth of contacts within the environmental architecture sector to help you achieve improved thermal efficiency and thereby lower energy bills.
