An energy simulation study of wall systems for Canadian Arctic Homes

This paper describes a parametric assessment of energy usage budgets for selected building envelope assemblies. The simulation study was conducted as part of a project to develop building envelope assemblies that are energy efficient and durable under extreme cold outdoor climates and indoor conditions typically found in these climes. Energy costs in northern Canada are high especially in the Arctic where communities are accessible only by air or boat or ice roads. Energy efficiency is therefore a primary objective here however this objective must be balanced with transportation and construction costs, which are also high. The objective of the simulation study was to compare the energy performance of proposed high performance wall assemblies with typical baseline wall assemblies. Four high performance walls were compared with two baseline walls, one a wall typical of low latitude regions, and the second a typical arctic wall assembly. Seven locations were selected for analysis, 2 representing western, 2 representing central, and 3 representing eastern arctic conditions. Three buildings were simulated, a fully detached home, a middle unit of a multiunit residence, and an end unit of a multiunit residence. A model for estimating the change in energy consumption with changes in wall thermal conductance was developed. Obviously the most highly insulated wall system exhibits the best performance with respect to space heating consumption. Recommending a wall type was outside the scope of this study but within the scope of the larger project. The objective of this work was to provide a method to easily determine change in space heating consumption due to a change in wall construction, which can then be used as the basis for a total life cycle assessment of the proposed walls.Peer reviewed: NoNRC publication: Ye