Over the past decade many studies were conducted to investigate the thermal performance of terraced houses in Malaysia. It was found that this housing typology failed to address the need for thermal comfort and alternatives to the narrow frontage with deep plan have been proposed with simulated good thermal performance. Although this is good progress for new generation of terraced houses, millions of units of terraced houses are still in use and new units with the outdated existing plans continued to get built due to consistently very high demand due to progressive urbanisation and rapid economic developments. Therefore, it is imperative that the thermal comfort issue for existing terraced houses is dealt with and through this paper a comparison between single and double storey terraced houses is made through analysis of indoor environmental monitoring (ambient temperature, relative humidity and air velocity) of two (2) selected case studies in Merlimau, Melaka. Contrary to popular belief, it is found that there is no statistical difference between both sets of indoor temperature and relative humidity between the case studies. This finding is indicative of the consistent and stable temporal temperature highs and lows in a 24 hour cycle despite the difference in indoor volume and distance between the ground floor and the roof cavity. Much of the reason is due to the materiality of the terraced houses construction and unsealed and uninsulated building envelope. Therefore, further research into improving the thermal performance of existing terraced houses of any typology have to be conducted to allow thermal comfort and to reduce reliance on high energy consuming air-conditioning.
A field study of residents’ thermal comfort in a naturally ventilated intermediate single storey terrace house was carried out at Merlimau, Melaka. An intermediate single storey terrace house was chosen as a case study and indoor thermal condition measurements were recorded for three days. The indoor ambient temperature, relative humidity and air speed were measured using on-site monitoring equipment to evaluate the thermal performance of this house. A questionnaire survey was also conducted involving all occupants to determine their thermal comfort perception of the same case study house. The aim of this study is to analyse the indoor thermal condition of an intermediate single storey terrace house in order to propose architectural features to climatically adapt to the local climate. In naturally ventilated condition, results showed that this house is thermally uncomfortable and the indoor thermal condition was between 2.7°C to 5.9°C higher than suggested temperatures stipulated in ASHRAE Standard 55. Consistently, five out of eight occupants or less than 80% of occupants voted the house as thermally acceptable according to ASHRAE Standard 55.
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