Experimental Analysis of the Thermal Performance of a Sunspace Attached to a House with a Central Air Conditioning System

In this paper, the thermal performance of a sunspace attached to a house with a central air conditioning system was experimentally investigated. The house with a south-facing sunspace is located in Miyazaki, Japan, where heating is required in winter. In order to reduce the heating energy in winter, the hot air from the attached sunspace is sent to the central air conditioning room, from where it is then distributed and stored throughout the house by way of air circulation. Only when the temperature in the sunspace exceeds 24 °C is the hot air in the sunspace sent to the central air conditioning room. The air circulation between the attached sunspace and central air conditioning room is 500 m3/h. The temperature of the attached sunspace and each room were measured. The results showed that a house with a sunspace can save about 12.2% of energy compared to a house without a sunspace.