Effect of Enclosed Balcony on Indoor Thermal Environment of Rural Buildings in Qinba Mountain Area

Abstract

Qinba mountain area, located in hot summer and cold winter areas, has special climatic conditions. Preliminary tests found that the balcony has a positive effect on improving the indoor thermal environment. The rural dwellings of Huguangying in Hanzhong were selected as the research object, and DesignBuilder was used to analyze the influence of balcony depth, shading measures and thermal parameters of transparent envelopment structure on the indoor thermal environment by adding enclosed balconies. The simulation results show that the average heat gain of the optimized balcony increased by about 4.6% in winter and decreased by about 7.3% in summer, among which, the temperature of the southward bedroom increased by about 2.0°C in winter, the temperature of the southward bedroom decreased by about 3.0°C in summer during the day and the temperature at night increased slightly. The results fully illustrate the thermal insulation effect of closed balcony and its applicability to improve indoor thermal environment in Qinba mountain.