Focus on Energy: The Comfort Factor in Building Performance

Picture this for a minute: a man standing with one foot in a bucket of ice water and the other in a bucket of scalding water heated to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Would he be comfortable? An engineer operating by the book might say yes, because the average temperature of those buckets is a balmy 80 degrees. Btu in equal Btu out. The “net heat loss” or “net heat gain” by the man is zero. Thermal equilibrium. Scott Lewis of the Energy Design Collaborative in New York used this example at a recent conference of the Northeast Solar Energy Association to illustrate the frequent inconsistency between quantitative energy performance and performance in terms of comfort. You and I know