Social housing in the Dominican Republic, a study on thermal comfort

Abstract

[EN] The accelerated growth of cities entails challenges in all sectors, and specifically, it has a close relationship with the construction sector. The Dominican Republic is a country where urban growth is increasing considerably, representing a problem of great magnitude in terms of the construction of social housing to reduce the housing deficit. In the social housing projects in Santo Domingo, the energy conditions are non-existent. There are no previous studies on the thermal comfort of those buildings. For this reason, this study seeks to analyze thermal comfort and energy efficiency in these types of housing through an energy simulation.The energy simulation is carried out through OpenStudio, which uses the Energy Plus calculation engine. A type of model was analyzed for the determination of temperatures and ranges of thermal comfort to evaluate its behavior for 24 hours in different months. The calculations obtained from the energy consumption due mainly to the variation of the comfort temperature indicate that the temperature variation is very similar in the selected months, with a maximum temperature of 27.3ºC in the hottest month and a minimum temperature of 26 .8ºC in the coldest month. Finally, due to the warm climate that prevails in the area, a high comfort temperature is recorded in these types of dwellings. To improve the comfort conditions in this type of dwelling, it is necessary to add thermal insulation and control the solar gains effectively.