Thermal Performance Assessment in a Single-Story Detached House

Abstract

Abstract Malaysia is a tropical climate with high temperatures, especially indoor temperatures, due to the abundant sunlight it gets throughout the year. Passive design is one of the cooling ways to minimise mechanical ventilation usage. This study will focus on a single-story detached house and emphasise all passive design techniques in Puncak Iskandar, Seri Iskandar, Perak. The house was selected based on orientation, vacant house and no vegetation surrounding the compound. There were two objectives: to determine the indoor space of the case study house with poor thermal performance and to analyse the passive design application which contributes to the thermal performance of the selected indoor space. The method of this study is quantitative research, which applies field measurement and on-site observation. Instrumental tools used in this study were two sets of data loggers. Environmental parameters investigated are temperature, humidity, air velocity, and solar radiation. The findings were analysed to understand the effect of passive design strategy on house temperature. This study discovered that passive design methods influenced the house temperature performance, particularly in hot and humid climate regions, due to building orientation, building form, shading, building materials, opening, and daylighting. Vegetation on the house surroundings and insulation are not being investigated and are part of the study’s limitations.