Building insulation performance and energy consumption survey on social welfare facilities in Hokkaido

Abstract

In this study, targeting large-scale welfare facilities for the elderly (that consume a huge amount of energy), an improvement process for investigating the conditions of buildings, energy consumption, and contributing to energy and resource saving was investigated. Moreover, analyzing the thermal environment inside actual facilities and the health of the residents revealed the following four findings:
(1) According to the results obtained by analyzing the conditions of buildings (scale, age, specification, etc.) by means of a questionnaire (which elicited 165 valid responses), the average total floor area and average age of facilities are respectively as follows: intensive-care nursing homes for the elderly: 3729 m² and 20.3 years; low-cost nursing homes for the elderly: 3486 m² and 18.0 years.
(2) From the results of an investigation on various types of energy consumption (e.g., electricity, gas, and oil) of each building, three types of energy consumption (i.e., heating use, cooling use, and base use) was supposed. In detail, the basic unit of energy-consumption, energy-consumption ratio of heating use, and the coefficient of heat loss of the building are as follows: intensive-care nursing homes for the elderly: 2,512 MJ/(m² year ), 44.5%, and 3.08 W/(m² K); low-cost nursing homes for the elderly: 2,082 MJ/(m² year ), 50.5%, and 2.58 W/ W/(m² K).
(3) By using the coefficient of heat loss acquired above, the effect of reducing energy consumption by improving thermal performance of a building was estimated. According to the results of the estimation, setting the thermal insulation performance of a building to the residential next-generation energysaving standard (area classification I) of 1.6 W/ W/(m² K) cut energy consumption for heating by about 50%.
(4) At three facilities in Sapporo city, indoor thermal environments and the health of residents were investigated. According to the results of the investigation, the temperatures of the common-use areas and private rooms differed by 5ºC at two of the facilities. However, in the majority of facilities, the relative humidity of both the common-use areas and private rooms was in the range of 20–30%. Results conclude that hypertensive persons in those two facilities are living in an environment in which the temperatures of the common-use areas and the private rooms differ significantly.