Redeveloping industrial buildings for residential use: Energy and thermal comfort aspects

The old industrial buildings, now located near the city centres, redeveloping into commercial or residential use is very popular, but energy and especially comfort conditions not analysed because usually the specific projects are not made. This article provides an analysis of various aspects of energy demand and indoor thermal comfort when old, often unused industrial buildings are redeveloped for residential use. The results of the analysis, if the buildings are in use, show such redevelopment to be very efficient in terms of saving energy resources. In order to analyse thermal comfort of the redeveloped building, two different heating systems, radiator heating and floor heating, were examined. The performance of these systems was analysed with respect to three different room heights and window-to-wall ratios (hereinafter referred to as WWR). In order to simulate temperature distribution, computational fluid dynamics (hereinafter referred to as CFD) software SolidWorks®FlowSimulation was used. The results of the research demonstrate the acceptability of the heating systems in terms of indoor climate and thermal comfort as well as facilitate further discussion for future research in the field.