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Leaflet 33
Passive solar design
Looe Junior and Infant School
In nearly every respect the school achieves a high The school cost no more than average yet achieves
standard of environmental provision a very good energy performance
A low tech traditional design optimises sunlight, Solar energy contributes over a quarter of the space
daylight, and natural ventilation heating requirement
B E S T
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P R O G R A M M E
LOOE JUNIOR AND INFANT SCHOOL
DESIGN STRATEGY
Background
Looe Junior and Infant School has been designed
Workspace
to provide facilities for 300 children between
the ages of four and eleven. It had, at the time WC
Workspace Workspace
of monitoring, four infant (now increased to six)
and six junior classrooms, staff accommodation, Changing
ior
ancillary services and catering facilities. It has Jun
r
been occupied since September 1984. Junio
ior
The school is the product of Cornwall County Jun
ior Jun
Councils desire to reduce its dependency on ior
Jun
ior Jun
fossil fuels. In pursuit of this aim the architects
decided that significant energy savings could
be achieved in the school without substantially Hall Library
increasing capital cost. This was to be achieved
by introducing passive solar features into a N Quiet
design which retained the use of familiar Tanks
construction techniques.
Although Cornwall has a low annual degree- Kitchen Staff
day total the exposed nature of the site, on a
hilltop overlooking the sea with strong Atlantic First floor
winds, required careful planning with appropriate Head
WC WC
choice and location of materials.
nt Infa
Infa nt
t WC
Infan Infa
nt
Infa
nt
Infa
nt
Ground floor
56
Plan of school: all classrooms face towards the south to take advantage of solar energy
54
Design and solar strategy Orientation
Although the educational environment required The school exploits direct solar gain in all the
by the briefing document was an important classrooms by placing them in a splayed plan,
52
influence, the final plan was largely influenced thereby providing each classroom with a large
by passive solar considerations. southerly facade. This plan arrangement also
reduces overshading of the north wings by
The solar design strategy adopted for the
50 those to the south.
Looe Junior school optimises solar gain by combining
and Infant school direct and indirect solar heating whilst minimising
Internal layout
potential heat losses through the fabric. To
Corridors and utility areas are placed along the
Location of Looe achieve this, the following measures were used.
north sides of the splayed arms and the hall,
kitchen, library and staff rooms are contained in
a central two-storey block. Access to classrooms
is via the central block or draught lobbies on
the north facade.
Thermal mass
Masonry construction and a Trombe bench
design are used to accumulate heat gains in the
structure so that they are released over time.
Solar gain
Large areas of south facing glazing allow direct
gain of solar radiation into the classrooms.
Daylight
Daylight is provided mainly by the large south
facing windows augmented by south facing
rooflights to illuminate the middle of the deeper
View from east: splay of infant and junior classrooms creates shelter for playground. North infant classrooms and the workspace at the
elevations only have small windows rear of the junior classrooms.
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LOOE JUNIOR AND INFANT SCHOOL
DESIGN STRATEGY
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LOOE JUNIOR AND INFANT SCHOOL
CONSTRUCTION AND SERVICES
User reaction
Services
The overall reaction of those who use Looe
Ventilation
School is that the building is successful both
The school is primarily naturally ventilated
aesthetically and environmentally, except for
by opening the horizontally sliding, full-height
some reservations about the ventilation. The
windows there are no trickle ventilators.
school provides a popular environment that is
The kitchen, cleaners store, staff shower
conducive to learning and therefore is judged to
and WC are mechanically ventilated.
have satisfied educational criteria. Good
Electric lighting energy performance has not been attained at
Rows of fluorescent fittings running parallel the expense of amenity.
to the windows supplement daylight from
Ventilation
the large south facing windows and south
The decision to reduce heat losses by minimising
facing rooflights. Such an arrangement
infiltration rates but also to use an inflexible
means that each row of lights can be
window design, resulted in poor air quality in
independently switched to take account of
the school. Teachers experienced problems
the available daylight. The average installed
with odour and stuffiness which could only be
load is 12 W/m2 gross floor area (GFA).
cleared by opening the large south facing
Heating and hot water windows. However, the resultant draughts,
Space heating is provided by three gas- caused by the strong winds on the exposed
fired boilers each rated at 68 kW output site, disturbed teaching material on or adjacent
serving fan assisted convectors controlled to the Trombe benches. Therefore staff were
by a central thermostat and an optimiser. reluctant to open the windows and consequently
Each classroom has its own thermostat, natural ventilation rates of 1 to 2 ach were below
which is under the control of the teacher. the 2.5 ach needed to meet Department for
Domestic hot water is produced by a boiler/ Education and Employment (Df EE) standards.
calorifier rated at 48.5 kW, independent South facing rooflights allow light and heat Moreover, infiltration levels measured overnight
from the space heating system. into the juniors workspaces, but do not were found to be very low at only 0.2 to 0.4 ach.
open and overheating can occur It was therefore not surprising that CO2 levels
were averaging over 1200 ppm with a peak
above 3000 ppm. A recommended level would
be around 800 ppm.
Thermal comfort
The external shading and traditional masonry
construction succeeded in preventing thermal
discomfort to the occupants of the school for
most occupancy periods. Several teachers felt
they had occasionally experienced overheating
in the school, but no underheating was reported.
Classroom temperatures remained within a
comfort range of 17 to 23C for 88% of a one-year
,,,
period, and temperatures over 27C were
recorded for only 9 hours over the whole school
year. Better cross ventilation and avoidance of
solar overheating could have been achieved by
having opening rooflights and shading for them.
Trombe bench
Low Solar Gains Medium High Solar Gains
The Trombe bench contributed less to the
buildings performance than had been
Air flow from the Trombe wall occurred on sunny days, but on less sunny days modelling envisaged by the designer. Its relatively small
indicated that a cold down draught from the windows stopped the warm air rising out of the area and limited mass meant that it accounted
cavity. When a window was opened for ventilation, heat could be quickly flushed out of the for only a small proportion of the total energy
cavity and several days of sun required to restore a positive thermal gradient in the cavity flow into each classroom approximately 3%
of the space heating energy.
Construction
External walls U = 0.43 W/m2 C Windows DG U = 4.0 SG U = 7.0 W/m2 C 63
Due to the exposed nature of the site the 42
External walls are of traditional masonry
construction with 100 mm facing brick, 50 mm main glazing units in the classrooms are high
cavity, 30 mm foil-lined insulation board, 100 mm quality, aluminium framed, horizontally 16
medium weight blockwork and 12 mm render. sliding, draughtstripped double glazed (DG)
units. Small windows in the north and east
Floor U = 0.3 W/m2 C
facades are single glazed (SG) units in
Floor finishes, on a 50 mm concrete screed
aluminium frames to reduce costs.
laid on a 150 mm concrete slab, vary with
activity. To avoid thermal bridging the insulation
Rooflights DG U = 4.0 W/m2 C
has been extended to a depth of 1 m beneath
The south facing rooflights are double glazed.
the floor slab.
Ceiling and roof void U = 0.34 W/m2 C Trombe bench
The plasterboard ceiling is insulated with The thermally massive Trombe bench is the
100 mm foil-backed glass fibre quilt. To only non-standard construction in the building The overhang shades high angle sun with
avoid thermal bridging the wall insulation has and is constructed from blockwork with a tile- backup from venetian blinds for lower
been continued into the roof space. covered concrete slab forming the bench. angles in the mornings, afternoons and
spring and autumn
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LOOE JUNIOR AND INFANT SCHOOL
PERFORMANCE
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LOOE JUNIOR AND INFANT SCHOOL
CONCLUSION
Construction costs
l
Classroom CO2
60
A
. c ry S y
.19 ch
concentration PPM
.19
t S ck 0
the second quarter of 1986, was 417/m2. In
igh to 98
4000
Cc
e
Elmach Voldfie nd S
KS 1
comparison with other primary school construction
Ro on C ool ands
0
htw U ary
EA
n
90
3500
oh
O ad P
costs, this is an average cost.
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S u S c wl
t. J
oe Ne
3000
ck,
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Av burn
To counter the exposed location and to reduce
e
Lo eley
Sto
cto
2500
maintenance, it was Council policy to use
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e
tt
Cla
UK
t
Ya
demanding specifications for cavity insulation, 2000 Windows
closed
draught exclusion and double glazing, thereby 1500
increasing the cost of the school. The passive 1000
features have not added to the building cost Windows 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
500
except in the case of the roof. Here the cost opened
0 kWh/m2 P.E.U.
was higher than average some 17% of the 0.00 4.00 8.00 12.00 16.00 20.00
building cost. This was partly due to the 2.00 6.00 10.00 14.00 18.00 22.00
(no T ol
alis et
)
um
ed
rm arg
17 17 ho
rooflights and the wide overhang, which added Time of Day
xim
DN DN e Sc
extra roof area.
Ma
o
Night-time air changes were low at 0.2 to 0.4
17
Lo
However, the cost of the services installed was
DN
lower than normal, particularly in relation to the and average daytime ones varied between
smaller size of the heating plant due to the low 1 and 2 with the windows closed which
resulted in stuffiness. Window opening had Annual primary energy use in schools:
energy design.
a great effect on CO2 levels but resulted in Looes 210 kWh/m2 put it in front of other
Lessons from this study draughts because of the window design low energy schools
With a direct gain strategy, care has to be
taken over orientation and shading. The
designer provided a roof overhang and blind To convert metered fuel into primary energy, conversion factors of 3.73 for electric energy and 1.08 for gas
energy were used. These correspond to the approximate generation and transmission losses involved in
and, anticipating that these would reduce these fuels.
daylight, also provided rooflights. But those
over the classroom had less measured effect
than expected, and those over the workspaces
were excessive in terms of light and solar heat. 40
The school was designed to be airtight in order
to limit ventilation heat losses, but the result
was poor air quality because there was no 30
Frequency %
00
15 0
20 00
25 50
30 00
35 50
40 00
45 0
50 00
55 50
60 00
65 0
70 00
0
Trombe bench, these problems could have been
15
45
65
75
0-
-1
7
0-
0-
0-
0-
0-
0-
0-
0-
0-
0-
0-
0-
0-
50
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For further copies of this or other Best Practice programme publications please contact BRECSU and ETSU.
For buildings-related projects: Enquiries Bureau, BRECSU, Building Research Establishment, Garston, Watford, WD2 7JR. Tel 01923 664258. Fax 01923 664787. E-mail brecsuenq@bre.co.uk
For industrial projects: Energy Efficiency Enquiries Bureau, ETSU, Harwell, Oxfordshire OX11 0RA. Tel 01235 436747. Telex 83135. Fax 01235 433066. Crown copyright March 1996