HEATING/COOLING LOAD CALCULATION

Purpose: In this exercise you will calculate the rate at which heat must be supplied to the
house shown in the attached drawing in order to maintain the inside temperature at a
constant 70°F.

Thermal Resistance: The rate at which heat energy flows from a hot space to a cold
space depends directly on the temperature difference and inversely on the thermal
resistance of the wall separating the spaces. In equation form we write this in the
following way:

q = ( TH - TC )/ R (1)

where q is the heat transfer rate in units of BTU/ft2hr (or kW/m2 ), T is temperature and
the subscripts H and C denote hot and cold, and R is thermal resistance. This R is the “R-
Value” that is given for various types of insulation. A typical 6 inch fiberglass batt has a
rated R value of about 19 (units of °F ft2hr/BTU) and you will notice R-19 printed on the
paper side of the insulation. BTU stands for British Thermal Unit and 1 BTU is the
amount of energy needed to raise 1 pound of water 1 degree F. Thermal resistance, R, is
different for different materials. Where there are layers in a single wall, for example,
vinyl siding, foam insulation, OSB, then insulation, then drywall, the total resistance is
the sum of all of the layer resistances. The first step is to identify all the different areas
through which heat will flow and to find the thermal resistance for each area and each
type of construction. Each resistance will be in units of °F ft2hr/BTU. The total heat flow
through each area identified will be:

Q=qA (2)

where q is calculated using equation 1, A is the total area of a given construction, and Q
is the total heat flow rate through that area in BTU/hr. To calculate the overall heat
transfer rate you will add the contributions from wall areas, windows, doors, roof, etc.

Windows are typically very costly because first of all glass has a low thermal resistance.
Second, the glass is mounted in a frame that can potentially move if the window can be
opened. Both the way in which the glass is mounted in the frame and the movement of
the frame offer pathways for air to move through the window. Storm windows or
“thermopane” windows trap a layer of air or some other gas between two panes of glass.
Because gasses have a high thermal resistance as long as they do not move against the
glass, a thin layer of still air gives a resistance, R, in series with the glass and it is
transparent so it is still possible to see through the window. Flanges and weather strips
around the edges keep the air from flowing around the edges. Because windows involve
thermal resistance and also movement of air (called infiltration) through the window unit
this heat loss is given as:

Q = qA = UA( TH - TC ) (3)
Where the U factor (or transmission factor) for the window is typically 1.13 for single
pane glass, 0.45 for storm windows, 0.61 for thermopane, and as low as 0.21 for very
well designed windows. In each case the units for U are BTU/hr ft2?F.

Finally, cold air infiltrates through window cracks, door cracks, etc. at a certain rate.
That cold air must be heated to inside temperature. The infiltration loss will be
calculated using:

Q = ρ *ER*V*c*( TH - TC) (4)

where Q is the heat transfer rate, ρ is air density, ER is exchange rate of the air (in air
changes per hour) , V is the total enclosed volume of the house, c is the specific heat of
the air, and TH and TC are hot and cold temperatures respectively.

The sum of all these contributions is the rate at which heat flows out of the house at
specified inside and outside temperatures. In order to maintain the inside temperature
which we specify, heat must be supplied to the house by a furnace or heater at exactly the
same rate. A heating contractor will size a furnace using the lowest expected outside
temperature; for Detroit MI, this is -10°F. Notice that this will give the highest expected
load and that for lower loads the furnace will not have to run for as much time overall.
You will do this calculation using an outside temperature of 32°F and an inside
temperature of 70°F to find the average expected energy requirement to heat the house
when the average outside temperature is 32°F or freezing temperature for water.

Scale Drawings: The drawings of the house which are attached to this exercise are drawn
to scale. To establish a scale factor notice that the width of the house is 32 feet. If you
take out a ruler and measure the width of the house on the copy of the plans that you
have, the scale factor is equal to 32 feet divided by the width that you measure on your
plan copy. You can determine roof areas, window areas, wall areas, etc. directly from
the drawing using this conversion.

Calculation Worksheet Data- Let’s See How This Works!

For this entire calculation assume an inside temperature of 70 F and outside
temperature of 32 F.

Walls: One possibility for the outside walls is siding over 1/2” foam board, ½” OSB, 3
½ inches of cellulose insulation and 1/2” drywall. The resistances are given below:
component R (in units of hr ft2°F/BTU )
siding 0.09
1/2” OSB 0.63
1/2” drywall 0.45
Cellulose insulation 3.8 per inch thickness - for 3 ½ ”
multiply 3.8 by 3 ½ = 13.3 =R
½ “ foam board 5.0/ inch so for ½ inch, R=5*1/2= 2.5

1.) First find the total resistance for the wall by adding the component resistances. Notice
that the insulation resistance is given per inch of thickness. This way you could explore
the effect of different thickness’ if you wish.
R= Rsiding+ROSB+Rinsulation+Rfoam insulation+Rdrywall

2.) Next, use the drawings to determine how much wall area you have. Since you will be
finding window and door losses separately, exclude windows and door and count only
wall area.

3.) The heat loss through the walls will be the temperature difference between inside and
outside ( take as 70 - 32 = 38°F ) divided by total resistance, all multiplied by the total
area:

Q (BTU/hr) = A (ft2)x(Tinside - Toutside )(°F)/ R(ft2°F hr/BTU)

Thermal Bridging in Walls: A framed wall will have wood studs every 2 feet. Cavity
insulation will be placed between the studs and it will have a high resistance to the flow
of heat (high R value), however the wood stud has a lower resistance to the flow of heat
and it provides a low resistance path for heat flow.
Pine has a resistance of R=1.03 hr˚F/BTU per inch of thickness so that a 3 ½ inch thick
stud has an R value of 3.5x1.03 =3.61 hr˚F/BTU. Compare this to 3.5 inches of cellulose
insulation with R=13.30 hr˚F/BTU. When heat loss calculations are done for framed
walls the effect of the studs is often neglected and the wall is treated as if it has
continuous insulation. To see the effect of thermal bridging consider an 8 foot high
section that is 2 feet wide (studs on 24 inch centers). First calculate the heat loss through
a 3.5 inch thick wall that is entirely made of insulation.
Q (BTU/hr) = A (ft2)x(Tinside - Toutside )(°F)/ R(ft2°F hr/BTU)

Q = (2x8)ft2 x(Tinside - Toutside )(°F)/13.30 ft2°F hr/BTU = 1.20x(Tinside - Toutside )BTU/hr

This is the “no thermal bridging” case for an 8 ft by 2 ft wall section.

Now consider the heat loss through 8 ft x 1.5 inches of wood and parallel to that 8 ft x
22.5 inches of insulation. This corresponds to 15 ft2 that “sees” R=13.30 ft2°F hr/BTU
and 1 ft2 that “sees” R=3.61 ft2°F hr/BTU or :

Q= (15 ft2/13.30ft2°F hr/BTU + 1 ft2/3.61ft2°F hr/BTU)x(Tinside - Toutside )

Q in BTU/hr = (1.13 + 0.28)x(Tinside - Toutside ) = 1.41x(Tinside - Toutside )BTU/hr

You can show that this heat loss with the thermal bridging considered is 17.5% higher
than the case without thermal bridging. In an infra-red picture of a frame wall the studs
show up at hot areas. By putting a layer of foam board over the entire outside surface
area of a house a builder can add the thermal resistance of the foam to the stud section
and to the insulated section – increasing the R value for each part and decreasing the
overall effect of thermal bridging but it is still a significant factor for wood framed
houses.

Windows: There are many possibilities for window choices and you will quickly see
that an investment in well designed windows is very worthwhile.

Window construction U ( in BTU/ hr°F ft2)

 single pane 1.13
storm window added 0.45
Thermopane 0.61
Energy Star requirement 0.35
Well designed window 0.21

1. Find the total area of each type of window.

2. The heat transfer rate, Q in BTU/hr is: Q = U*A*(TH - TC)
3. Add the window heat loss to the wall heat loss

Roof: The attic will be insulated with enough cellulose insulation to give the DOE
recommended R=49. (At R=3.8/inch, how much blown in insulation is this?) Because
the attic will be insulated above the ceilings and the space above that will be vented to
outside, heat will flow through the ceilings upstairs to the attic space. That space above
the insulation can be assumed to be at the outside temperature.
1. Use the scale drawings to find the ceiling area, A.
2. The heat loss rate is then: Q = A(TH - TC)/R
3. Add the roof loss to the walls and windows.

Floor: The house is built over a full basement and the furnace (or boiler) will be in the
basement. It is possible to assume no heat loss through the first floor to the basement.

Infiltration: No building is perfectly airtight. Outside air enters (infiltrates) through door
cracks, around windows, around pipe and wire entries into the building, etc. Without
special ventilating equipment which might increase the infiltration rate it is safe to
assume that the entire inside volume of air will be exchanged every hour. That means
that in addition to offsetting the losses through walls, roof, windows, and floor, the
furnace must heat and entire inside volume of air from outside temperature to inside
temperature once every hour.
1. Use the scale drawings to determine the entire inside volume of air in units of ft3.
2. Typical well-insulated new construction will be 0.3 to 0.5 air changes/hour.
3. The specific heat of air is 0.240 BTU/lb °F, the density of air under normal pressure
and moderate temperature conditions is ρ = 0.0741 lb/ft3. The rate at which heat energy
is required is :
Q = exchange rate x Volume x specific heat x ρ x Temperature difference
(BTU/hr) (air chg/hour) (ft3) (BTU/lb°F) (lb/ft3) (°F)

where the units for each term are given below the variable.
4. Add this heat rate requirement to those from the walls, windows, and ceiling.

Green House Heat Load Spreadsheet Exercises

Select the following link for the Heat Load Calculation Spreadsheet

Using the Spreadsheet: The spreadsheet has been set up for the Green House on Watson
using the floor plans and elevation drawings. In the first few lines, the spreadsheet allows
you to input an R value for the walls and for the ceiling. It also allows you to input a U
factor for the windows and an exchange rate for the infiltration. Finally, it allows you to
specify inside and outside temperatures. When you change these values in the cells
specified at the beginning of the spreadsheet, the heating load is calculated automatically.
Notice that only outside walls are considered. If each inside space is at the specified
inside temperature there will be no heat transfer through interior walls. Also notice that
the spreadsheet is set up to determine the heating load for each room separately. This
allows the heating contractor to determine how many registers or how many feet of
baseboard radiator are required for each room.

Exercise 1: Many of the houses on the West Side of Grand Rapids were built when
energy was inexpensive and when houses were not insulated. Explore the effect of
changing the thermal envelope. Use the spreadsheet to find the heat load in BTU/hr for a
given temperature difference between inside and outside. Start with the Green House as
built:

Wall R =32 hr ft2˚F/BTU

Attic R=50 hr ft2˚F/BTU
Window U= 0.21 BTU/hr ft2˚F
Air-changes per hour = 0.30

Now change the thermal envelope values to those for an un-insulated house. Let the
walls made of 2 x 4 framing lumber with tarpaper and ½ inch wood siding outside and
plaster-lathe inside. The cavities between framing members are hollow. The windows
are single pane glass. The partition to the attic is plaster-lathe construction and the entire
envelope is very “leaky”. The Heat Transfer class has measured the air exchange rate in
such a house at more than 5 air changes per hour! Try one change at a time to be able to
see the effect of each part of the thermal envelope and then try all the changes together.

Wall R = 4.43 hr ft2˚F/BTU

Attic R = 0.6 hr ft2˚F/BTU
Window U = 1.13 BTU/hr ft2˚F
Air-changes per hour = 3.0

Exercise 2
Based on the results of the previous exercise consider the effect of bringing an entire city
block of old houses up to the level of performance of the Green House. On the block
where the Green House is built there are easily 4 to 5 large houses on one side of the
block. This corresponds to about 12 such houses per block with 4 houses on each side of
the block. Note that many of the large houses have been made into multi-family
dwellings. Compare the energy required to maintain 70˚F inside for 10 Green Houses to
the energy required to maintain 70˚F for 10 un-insulated houses for a period of one 24
hour day with an outside temperature of 32˚F. Comment about what you find and note
that a neighborhood is made up of many city blocks. Note that fuel not burned is also
pollution note produced. The next exercise will give you some idea of how much money
this potential savings represents.

Exercise 3
Adding all of these heat rates gives you a total building load. Just for fun, you can
calculate the cost to heat the house for some period of time. With a given set of wall R
value, attic R value, window U value, and infiltration rate and for 70°F inside and 32°F
outside determine the heat load. Suppose that these conditions existed for 1 week. About
how much would it cost to heat the house for 1 week using natural gas, oil, or electric
heat? Natural gas has a higher heating value of 1000 BTU/ft3 and it costs $0.92/100ft3.
(gas use is measured in CCF=100 ft3) The cost for natural gas will be :

cost = Q x hrs in 1 week x (ft3/1000BTU)x ($0.92/100ft3)

For oil, the cost is about $2.899/gallon and the higher heating value is 130,000BTU/gal.
The cost for 1 week will be:

cost = Q x hrs in 1 week x (1gal/130,000BTU) x ($0.88/gal)

For electric heat you will need to convert Q into units of kW since we are generally
billed for kWhrs of electricity:

Q (kW) = Q(BTU/hr) x ( 1kW/3413 BTU/hr)

The cost of electricity is about $0.093/kWhr. The cost to heat is then:

cost = Q (in kW) x hrs in 1 week x $0.093/kWhr

In general you should find that costs for oil and natural gas are somewhat comparable
with natural gas being the most economical. The most expensive way to heat is with
electric heaters.