The Heat Loss investigation showed that the room is an inefficient holder of heat, leading to great fluctuations in temperature and thermal comfort levels.  The lack of insulation results in the room being easily affected by exterior conditions.  By use of the Raytech heat gun it became evident that the South wall of the room was particularly affected by the colder outside temperatures, especially the Southwest corner.  The Southwest corner had points of heavy infiltration, namely the single operable window and the loosely constructed window-replacing wood box with its visible gaps.  The data from the Hobos demonstrates that over a period of two days the room went from being too cold for comfortable use while it was overcast, to being too hot when the sun was out.  The survey, which was primarily used to collect user patterns, also somewhat supported our hypothesis, but not as dramatically as we had predicted.

It seems that the roomís ability to loose heat may actually be useful if many people were using the room and creating a great deal of internal gains, although in that case the room doesnít loose heat fast enough as is born out by the hobo readings.  For a single user or multiple users not creating much internal gains, the room could become too cold for comfort given the general temperatures and solar availability in Eugene.

Ways to improve the space:

The easiest means of improving the forming room in regard to thermal comfort would be to first better insulate the space.  The windows could be replaced with double-glazing, and walls and ceiling could greatly benefit from some insulating batting.  As well, if all four windows were operable, than users would be able to control ventilation, and maintain their own thermal comfort in times of high usage.

Lessons learned:

In a study of this nature, it is very important to be organized. Because the study took place in a very short amount of time, measurements had to be taken quickly and accurately. There was little room for error. In order to do this the methods of gathering data must be clearly thought out and written down ahead of time, and then followed closely. Another element that is important in gathering the data effectively is the availability of tools and instruments. If one of the measurements one wants to make is of surface temperatures, and the Raytech surface temperature gun is not available, either other ways of measuring have to be performed or a different test must be done to replace the surface temperature measurements.

Further Study:

Given the short duration of this case study, we were not able to
record all the information we would have liked in order to understand the thermal environment inside the forming room. One thing that would have helped would be to have monitored the amount of use the room gets. We had a schedule of the hours of operation of the room, but we really didn't know the times when people were in the room, or how many people would use the room at a time. This would have been helpful in deciphering why there was a fluctuation of temperature recorded by the HOBO's other than solar gain. In order to record that data, we would have had to either set up a video camera in the room, or have someone spend a day there and make a record of when and how many people used the room. There simply wasn't time to set that up.