1. Descriptive section
This section includes three parts as the following:
A. Analysing climate conditions in Cairo, Egypt. The Weather data of Cairo is extracted from weather station in Cairo number (623660-HECA) which is located in Cairo airport and Weather file (IWEC) using Best Energy software.
B. Thermal comfort requirements for existing residential buildings in Cairo.
C. Description of Historic houses in historic Cairo.
2. Analytical section of the case study
In this section, the concept of “transdisciplinary approach” will be used. This section includes four steps as the following:
A. Simulation of thermal comfort level
B. Calibration
C. Assessment of Retrofit Actions
D. Comparison and discussion
A. Simulation of thermal comfort level
Best Energy, which is an interface for Energy plus, will be used as a tool in order to quantify the following items;
- The impact of building layout and orientation on the thermal comfort of the indoor spaces.
- The impact of shading from the neighbours and solar heat gain of the external surfaces
- Thermal behaviour (Ex: thermal transmittance) on the building envelop (Walls, Roof, Windows).
B. Calibration
The result of the simulation software will be calibrated and compared with national and international references in order to understand the needs of adjustment to achieve the thermal comfort requirements, and suggest the retrofit options.
These references are:
1. ASHRAE: Guideline-34P, “energy guideline for historical buildings and structures”, and ASHRAE-55 for the thermal comfort requirements, ASHRAE 14 will be used.
2. Egyptian code of Energy Efficiency for residential buildings: This code is the only one code in the energy efficiency of the buildings in Egypt. It includes the new buildings and the existing one and it focus on the houses. However, there is no explaining about the historical buildings.
The aim of comparing the simulation result with this code is to test the possibility for applying this code in the field of the cultural heritage in Egypt.
The result of this step is summarized in this table H in figure (26), also refer to Appendix 3: