Calculation of Heating and Cooling Loads in a Residential Building: The Effects of Roof Insulation and Double-Glaze Window

Air conditioning is essential for maintaining thermalcomfort in indoor environments. Today, air conditioning hasbecome a necessity in commercial and residential buildingsand industrial processes. Based on different calculationmethods, many numerical air conditioning energysimulation programs have been developed. In this paperCarrier software is used to calculate a residential towerbuilding’s heating and cooling loads in different conditions.The climate is considered hot and dry. Total heating loadand cooling load for initial design are obtained as 254332Wand 272251W respectively. Then the effect of installation ofroof insulation and double-glaze windows are studied.Results indicate that roof insulation and using double-glazewindow have significant effect on heating load and reduce itfor 24.9% in comparison with just 6.1% reduction of coolingload. These modifications also result in a remarkabledecrease in the load of the heating coil but have not positiveeffect on the load of cooling coil. This is a usualphenomenon when insulation is installed in hot climates.