A study on residential energy requirement and the effect of the glazing on the optimum insulation thickness

This work focuses on experimental and numerical study of a prototype building to study its thermal behavior and to compare its energy performance with those of a classical home in Algeria. Yearly cooling and heating transmission loads are calculated according to the increase of the thickness of the expanded polystyrene insulation for three different structure materials. The effect of the type of the glazing and the percentage of glazing in the wall has been studied to determine the optimum thickness of the insulation. The results of the thermal simulation showed that the inertia associated with good thermal insulation has an important role in improving thermal comfort and can reach up to 70% energy savings on heating and air conditioning. The results for cooling show that the optimum insulation thickness of expanded polystyrene vary between 1 cm and 2.5 cm, the energy savings vary between 0.5 and 1.5 $/m2 depending on the type and the percentage of the window in the wall.