The Effect of Furniture and Floor Covering Upon Dynamic Thermal Building Simulations

In this paper, the impact of modelling furniture and floor covering in thermal building simulations is analysed and a distinct effect upon the simulated room temperatures under dynamic temperature control conditions is found. For the thermal steady state, the impact is negligible and for short-time temperature reductions, as know from night temperature set-back, the found differences are also not significant. However, if a room is dynamically heated, for example while charging its thermal mass as a measure of load shifting, distinct temperature differences between empty and furnished rooms are detected. After just 4 hours of increased set temperature, an empty massive room was 1.2 K warmer than the same modelled room with laminate flooring and furniture inside. If such simulation results are used to control load shifting activities, the system's scope of operation which is already restricted through the narrow comfort range of residents, could be yet further reduced. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.