detached house

In Japan, wooden detached residential houses are common; the wood components within a wall may undergo decay because of condensation in the wall or flushing defects, which can be a concern. The temperature distribution throughout the house, such as a high temperature in the attic space, can cause discomfort to the occupants. A double-skin system of room-side air gaps is considered to be an effective technique to handle these problems.

Detached residential wooden houses are a common type of housing in Japan. Decay of wooden components within the walls caused by condensation or defective flushing, is sometimes an issue. To solve this problem, a double-skin system with a room-side air gap was developed. In this system, during summer, the airflow that is driven by ventilation fans moves through the room-side air gap in the wall, and removes heat load either from the inner surface of the insulation material, or from the surface adjacent to the rooms inside.

Recently, insulation retrofits of existing houses have been thought to be one of the effective measures from the viewpoint of global warming prevention. However, the overall reduction effects of environmental loads by the insulation retrofits have not yet been clarified. This study intends to accumulate basic data concerning the insulation retrofits and to promote the energy saving of existing houses. 

A simulation study on the reduction of cooling loads by utilizing cross-ventilation was performed for a typically shaped house as defined by the Architectural Institute of Japan. A reduction in cooling load of around 50% could be achieved when the windows were opened liberally at night compared with the cooling load when all the windows remained closed, regardless of building coverage ratio.

Specific and effective measures for international issues, such as prevention of global warming, energysaving, reduction of environmental loads, are urgently required.The improvement of the insulation efficiency of the house and the building is demanded as the part.For that purpose, it is also necessary to determine whether installed insulating materials have beeninstalled properly, and whether they can actually demonstrate the expected performance.On the basis of the results of various surveys, the infrared method was proposed as nondestructivein-site measuring method enabling simple measur