Building and Environment 43 (2008) 10551064

Optimum insulation thicknesses for building walls with respect to

cooling and heating degree-hours in the warmest zone of Turkey
Ali Bolattu rk

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Su leyman Demirel University, 32260 Isparta, Turkey

Received 14 June 2006; received in revised form 2 February 2007; accepted 16 February 2007
Abstract
Thermal insulation is one of the most effective energy conservation measures for cooling and heating in buildings. Therefore,
determining and selecting the optimum thickness of insulation is the main subject of many engineering investigations. In this study, the
determination of optimum insulation thickness on external walls of buildings is comparatively analyzed based on annual heating and
cooling loads. The transmission loads, calculated by using measured long-term meteorological data for selected cities, are fed into an
economic model (P
1
P
2
method) in order to determine the optimum insulation thickness. The degree-hours method that is the simplest
and most intuitive way of estimating the annual energy consumption of a building is used in this study. The results show that the use of
insulation in building walls with respect to cooling degree-hours is more signicant for energy savings compared to heating degree-hours
in Turkeys warmest zone. The optimum insulation thickness varies between 3.2 and 3.8 cm; the energy savings varies between 8.47 and
12.19 $/m
2
; and the payback period varies between 3.39 and 3.81 years depending on the cooling degree-hours. On the other hand, for
heating load, insulation thickness varies between 1.6 and 2.7 cm, energy savings varies between 2.2 and 6.6 $/m
2
, and payback periods
vary between 4.15 and 5.47 years.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Thermal insulation; Optimum insulation thickness; Cooling degree-hours; Heating degree-hours; Energy savings
1. Introduction
Energy consumption is rapidly increasing due to
increasing population, urbanization, migration to large
cities and improvement in standard of living. The energy
consumption is distributed among four main sectors:
industrial, building (residential/commercial), transporta-
tion and agriculture. The building sector is the largest
energy consumer following the industrial sector. In many
countries, the energy required for space heating and
cooling in buildings has the highest share of all [1,2].
Energy saving and the effective usage of energy are very
important in Turkey since she imports most of its energy. It
is clear that effective thermal protection in building sector
plays an important role towards the reduction of energy
consumption for space heating and cooling.
The use of insulation materials to decrease heat transfer
to/from surfaces has been in practice for many years.
Recent concerns of energy conservation and awareness of
the limited energy resources encouraged revisiting the
problem of thermal insulation. Most of the available
studies focus on the optimum insulation thickness for
buildings [35], for refrigeration applications [6,7] and for
cold stores [810] because of the large potential for energy
savings. All these studies emphasized that thermal insula-
tion is a requirement for energy saving. Some of them
investigated optimum insulation thicknesses with no regard
to the economics of insulation. Al-Senea and Zedan [3]
concluded that the optimum insulation thickness is found
to increase with the cost of electricity, building lifetime and
ination rate; and decrease with increasing cost of
insulation material, coefcient of performance (COP) of
air-conditioning equipment and discount rate. Hasan [4]
used life-cycle cost analysis to determine optimum insula-
tion thicknesses for rock wool and polystyrene insulation.
Al-Turki and Zaki [7] obtained the effect of insulation and
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energy storing layers by the cooling load. Their study
demonstrated that dispersion of the insulation within the
building material is less effective than using a continuous
equivalent insulation layer placed on the outdoor facade in
reducing the cooling loads. Soylemez and Unsal [9]
investigated optimum insulation thickness for refrigeration
applications. They reported that the optimization techni-
que leads to general formula which may be used to
determine the economically optimum insulation for many
different economic parameters. It is clear that both
excessive and decient insulation is not desirable economic-
ally. Excessive insulation leads to lower life cycle energy
cost but requires too much capital investment. On the
contrary lack of insulation causes larger life cycle energy
cost with lower initial capital.
The optimum insulation thickness depends on the cost of
insulation material and cost of energy, as well as cooling
and heating loads, efciency of the heating system, COP of
the cooling equipment, lifetime of building, and current
ination and discount rates. Annual cooling and heating
loads change according to different climate zones. It should
be determined in advance whether the optimum insulation
thickness calculations will be based on heating or cooling
load. Because of the extremely hot weather in some regions
of the country (especially in the rst zone), most of the
electric consumption goes to the air-conditioning loads.
Most of these air-conditioning loads are due to heat
transmission across the building envelope, especially in
residential applications. Therefore the most effective
way for conserving electric energy is by reducing
air-conditioning loads. This can be achieved, at the design
stage, by employing thermal insulation in the building
envelope and shading of glass areas. A remarkable work
has been done for the determination of heating and cooling
loads of buildings using the ASHRAE handbooks [11]. But
the case of reducing the heat transfer to the buildings
during summer using an adequate insulation was not
analyzed considerably [12].
In Turkey, insulation thicknesses in buildings are
calculated based on heating loads because the regulation
issued by the government ofce of housing in 1999 is based
on the heating load [13]. Also, in literature, the optimum
insulation thicknesses were obtained based on heating load
with no comparison to the optimum thicknesses based on
the cooling load. In this study, optimum insulation
thicknesses for building walls with respect to both annual
heating and cooling loads at different base temperatures
are calculated for various cities in the rst climatic zone of
Turkey (Table 1). There are four climate zones in Turkey
and the rst zone has the warmest summer conditions with
respect to the other regions (Fig. 1). Also, the energy
savings and payback periods resulting from the use of
insulation are compared at a base temperature of 18 1C.
2. Heating and cooling degree-hours
An analysis of annual energy consumption and cost
usually accompanies the design heat load calculations and
plays an important role in the selection of a heating or
cooling system. For buildings that are at the design or
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Nomenclature
C cost ($ m
3
, $(kWh)
1
)
CDH annual cooling degree-hours (1C-hours)
COP coefcient of performance of cooling system
d discount rate
E
A
annual heating energy (J m
2
year
1
)
HDH annual heating degree-hours (1C-hours)
h
o
combined convection and radiation heat trans-
fer coefcient (Wm
2
K
1
)
i interest rate
k thermal conductivity (Wm
1
K
1
)
LHV lower heating value (J m
3
, J (kWh)
1
)
N lifetime (years)
N
P
payback period (years)
R thermal resistance (m
2
KW
1
)
S savings ($ m
2
)
q heat loss/gain (Wm
2
)
_ q
solar
solar radiation (Wm
2
)
T
b
base temperature (1C)
T
o
mean ambient temperature (1C)
T
sa
sol-air temperature (1C)
T
surr
sky temperature (1C)
U overall heat transfer coefcient (Wm
2
K
1
)
x insulation thickness (m)
Greek letters
e emissivity of the surface
a
s
solar absorptivity
Z
s
efciency of the heating system.
Subscripts
A annual
C cooling
E electricity
F fuel
H heating
I insulation material
i inside
ins insulation
o outside
op optimum
t total
tw total wall excluding insulation material
un uninsulated
w wall material
A. Bolattu rk / Building and Environment 43 (2008) 10551064 1056
construction stage, the evaluation of annual energy
consumption involves the determination of the space load
for heating or cooling due to heat transfer through the
building envelope and inltration, the efciency of the
heating system where the fuel is burned or the COP of
cooling or heat pump systems. The space heat load is
usually based on the average temperature difference
between the indoors and the outdoors, but internal heat
gains and solar effects must also be considered for better
accuracy. Very accurate results can be obtained by using
hourly data for a whole year and by making a computer
simulation using one of the building energy analysis
software packages. There are various methods for calcula-
tion of annual energy consumption. The simplest and most
intuitive way of estimating the annual energy consumption
of a building is the degree-days (or degree-hours) method,
which is a steady-state approach. It is based on constant
indoor conditions during the heating or cooling season and
assumes the efciency of the heating or cooling equipment
is not affected by the variation of outdoor temperature.
These conditions will be closely approximated if all the
thermostats in a building are set at the same temperature at
the beginning of a heating or cooling season and are never
changed, and a seasonal average efciency is used (rather
than the full-load or design efciency) for the furnaces or
coolers [14].
The degree-hours method is useful in diagnosing the
potential impact of regional climate modications on
energy demand for space heating and cooling. The method
assumes that energy needs for a building are proportional
to the difference between the hourly average outdoor
temperature and a base temperature. The base temperature
is the outdoor temperature above or below which cooling
or heating is needed. Heating and cooling degree-hours are
commonly calculated at a base temperature of 18.3 1C
(651F) [1419]. Hart and Dear [20] reported that the mean
daily temperature associated with minimum heating and
cooling energy consumption for Sydney indicated that a
temperature of 18 1C was the most appropriate base
temperature for calculation of both heating and cooling
degree-days. However, the actual balance point tempera-
ture of an energy system varies depending on the place-
specic characteristics of the building stock, non-tempera-
ture weather conditions (e.g. humidity, precipitation,
wind), and cultural preferences. For example, a region
with a housing stock comprised of well-insulated homes
will have a relatively low balance point temperature.
Nonetheless, while place-specic variations in base tem-
peratures exist, most assessments continue to use the 18 1C
base because of the ease of data collection since degree-
days are commonly calculated with 18 1C as the base.
However, using 18 1C as a universal base temperature
implicitly assumes that the temperature where energy is
demanded for heating and cooling service is the same
everywhere [21]. Calculations of optimum insulation
thickness, payback period and energy savings in this study
were performed using 18 1C base temperature. In some
studies, annual heating and cooling consumptions of the
buildings are calculated by considering solar radiation
[12,22,23].
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 1
Certain data for selected cities
City Altitude (m) Longitude Latitude Winter outdoor
design temperature (1C)
Summer outdoor
design temperature (1C)
Adana 20 35.18 36.59 0 38
Antalya 42 30.42 36.53 3 39
Aydn 57 27.50 37.51 3 39
Hatay 100 36.07 36.15 0 37
I

skenderun 3 36.07 36.37 3 37

I

zmir 25 27.10 38.24 0 37

Mersin 5 34.36 36.49 3 35
0 150 km
A
E
G
E
A
N

S
E
A
Hatay
Antalya
Aydin
izmir
Adana
Mersin
MEDITERRANEAN SEA
BLACK SEA
TURKEY
N
iskenderun
1.
2.
3.
4.
Fig. 1. The climate zones of Turkey and the cities lies in the rst zone.
A. Bolattu rk / Building and Environment 43 (2008) 10551064 1057
The number of annual heating degree-hours (HDH)
using hourly data is determined from
HDH 1 year

365
1
1 day

24
1
T
b
T
sa

, (1)
where T
b
is the base temperature and T
sa
is sol-air
temperature for each hour. The+sign above the parenth-
esis indicates that only positive values are to be counted,
and the temperature difference is to be taken to be zero
when T
sa
4T
b
. The annual cooling degree-hours (CDH)
can be dened in an analogous expression as
CDH 1 year

365
1
1 day

24
1
T
sa
T
b

. (2)
For opaque surfaces such as the walls and the roofs, the
effect of solar radiation is conveniently accounted for by
considering the outside temperature to be higher by an
amount equivalent to the effect of solar radiation. This is
done by replacing the ambient temperature in the heat
transfer relation through the walls and the roof by the solar
air temperature dened as [14]
T
sa
T
o

a
s
_ q
solar
h
o

sT
4
o
T
4
surr

h
o
, (3)
where T
o
is the hourly average ambient temperature, a
s
the
solar absorptivity, h
o
the outer surface combined convec-
tion and radiation heat transfer coefcient, _ q
solar
the solar
radiation incident on the surface and e emissivity of the
surface. The second term indicates the solar heat gain effect
on the opaque surface while the last term represents the
temperature correction for the radiation heat transfer when
T
surr
6T
o
. It ranges from about zero for vertical wall
surfaces to 4 1C for horizontal roof surfaces facing the sky,
due to the low effective sky temperature, T
surr
. The solar-
air temperature for a surface obviously depends on the
absorptivity of the surface for solar radiation. Being
conservative and taking h
o
17 W/m
2
K, the summer
design values of the ratio a
s
/h
o
for light- and dark-colored
surfaces are determined to be 0.026 and 0.052 m
2
K/W,
respectively.
Accurate and reliable weather data are crucial for
building energy estimation and analysis. Therefore, the
database used in an energy analysis should cover a long-
term period (average 16 years) and recent values. In this
study, hourly data given by Buyukalaca et al. [24] is used
for more accurate results. The annual heating and cooling
loads with respect to various base temperatures at the rst
zone cities are shown in Tables 2 and 3.
3. Annual heating and cooling loads
Heat losses from buildings mostly occur from external
walls, ceiling, windows, and basement and by inltration.
We calculate optimum insulation thickness considering
heat losses from external walls. Wall structures vary with
climate. In warm climates bricks or concrete bricks are only
covered with thin plaster layer while in cold climates
sandwich walls are used. Energy consumption for heating
or cooling is high in buildings in Turkey, especially in hot
climate zone since no or insufcient thermal insulation is
used. Generally, polystyrene and rock wool are used for
insulation [25]. We choose extruded polystyrene board
(r 36 kg/m
3
, k 0.028 W/mK) as an insulation material
in the calculations. The structure of wall consists of 2 cm
inner plaster (k 0.87 W/mK), 20 cm horizontal hollow
brick (k 0.45 W/mK), insulation material, and 3 cm
external plaster. This structure is used in calculations for
all cities considered.
Heat loss through a unit area of external wall is given by
q UT
b
T
sa
, (4)
where U is the overall heat transfer coefcient. The annual
energy cost for heating per unit area can be calculated by
dividing heat loss to the efciency of the heating system Z
s
,
E
A;H

C
F
U
LHV Z
s
HDH, (5)
where HDH is the degree-hours, C
F
is fuel cost in $/m
3
and
LHV is lower heating value of the fuel in J/m
3
. Similarly,
the annual cooling load can be determined in an analogous
expression as
E
A;C

C
E
U
COP
CDH, (6)
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 2
The annual cooling degree-hours various base temperature for selected
cities
City Base temperature (1C)
18 20 22 24 26
Adana 38 330 29 114 20 954 13 850 7970
Antalya 30 185 22 217 15 401 9833 5849
Aydn 31 333 23 195 16 139 10 235 5795
Hatay 32 573 24 137 16 577 10 193 5177
I

skenderun 36 423 26 823 18 519 11 583 6231

I

zmir 30 245 22 205 15 293 9533 5405

Mersin 32 953 24 025 16 297 9865 5233
Table 3
The annual heating degree-hours various base temperature for selected
cities
City Base temperature (1C)
14 16 18 20 22
Adana 8184 13 896 20 976 29 280 38 640
Antalya 10 536 17 544 25 992 35 544 46 224
Aydn 13 920 20 808 29 112 38 472 48 888
Hatay 12 672 19 128 26 856 35 736 45 744
I

skenderun 5232 10 080 16 560 24 528 33 744

I

zmir 13 488 20 280 28 512 37 992 48 552

Mersin 7464 13 428 20 448 29 064 38 928
A. Bolattu rk / Building and Environment 43 (2008) 10551064 1058
where CDH is the annual cooling degree-hours, C
E
is cost
of electricity in $/kWh and COP is coefcient of
performance of cooling system.
The overall heat transfer coefcient, U
un
for a typical
wall without an insulation is given by
U
un

1
R
i
R
w
R
o
, (7)
where R
i
and R
o
are the inside and outside air lm thermal
resistances, respectively, R
w
is thermal resistance of the
composite wall materials without the insulation. The
overall heat transfer coefcient U
ins
for a typical wall with
the insulation is given by
U
ins

1
R
i
R
w
R
ins
R
o
(8)
and R
ins
is the thermal resistance of the insulation layer,
which is
R
ins

x
k
, (9)
where x and k are the thickness and thermal conductivity
of the insulation material, respectively. If R
tw
is the total
wall thermal resistance excluding the insulation layer
resistance, the difference between the overall heat transfer
coefcients of uninsulated and insulated external walls can
be written as
DU U
un
U
ins

1
R
tw

1
R
tw
x=k
. (10)
4. Optimum insulation thickness and energy savings over the
lifetime
The rst cost of thermal insulation may be evalua-
ted as capital investment. It is possible to calculate the
present worth value of the amount of net energy savings
via insulation using the P
1
P
2
method [26]. This is a
practical, well-known method and can be used for
optimizing the size of insulation of external walls.
P
1
is the present worth factor of a series of N future
payments with interest rate i per period accounting
for the time value of money with a market dis-
count rate per period of d. The equation for P
1
is dened
as
P
1
N; i; d

N
j1
1 i
j1
1 d
j

1
di
1
1i
1d
_ _
N
_ _
N
1i
_

_
if iad,
if i d. 11
P
2
is the ratio of the life cycle expenditures incurred
because of the additional capital investment to the initial
investment. P
2
is dened by
P
2
1 P
1
M
s
R
v
1 d
N
, (12)
where M
s
is the ratio of the annual maintenance
and operation cost to the original rst cost, R
v
is the
ratio of the resale value to the rst cost. P
2
can be
taken as 1 if the maintenance and operation cost is
zero [9].
The cost of insulation is given by
C
ins
C
I
x, (13)
where C
I
is the cost of insulation material in $/m
3
and x is
the insulation thickness in m.
The net energy savings for heating over the life-
time per unit area, S
H
, can be formulated with P
1
P
2
method as
S
H
P
1
E
A;H
P
2
C
ins
(14)
or
S
H

P
1
C
F
DU
LHV Z
s
HDHP
2
C
I
x. (15)
The optimum value of the net energy savings can be
determined mathematically by taking the derivative of the
savings function with respect to x and setting it equal to
zero:
qS
H
qx

qDU
qx
P
1
C
F
HDH
LHV Z
s
P
2
C
I
x (16)
so that optimum insulation thickness for heating is
obtained as
x
op
;
H

P
1
C
F
kHDH
P
2
C
I
LHV Z
s
_ _
1=2
R
tw
k. (17)
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 4
The parameters used in calculations
Parameter Value
Degree-hours, DD (1C-hours) See Tables 2 and 3
Fuel
Natural gas (in heating)
Cost, C
F
0.367 $/m
3
LHV 34.526 10
6
J/m
3
Z
S
93%
Electricity (in cooling)
Cost, C
E
0.118 $/kWh
COP 2.5
Insulation
Polystyrene
Conductivity, k 0.028 W/mK
Cost, C
I
155 $/m
3
Density, r 432 kg/m
3
External walls
2 cm int. plaster (k 0.87 W/mK)
20 cm hollow brick (k 0.45 W/mK) R
tw
0.672 m
2
K/W
x
op
cm insulation
3 cm ext. plaster
Interest rate 5%
Ination rate 4%
Lifetime, N 10
A. Bolattu rk / Building and Environment 43 (2008) 10551064 1059
The payback period of insulation cost, N
P
,
H
can be
calculated by setting the net savings function to zero:
N
P;H

ln 1
P
2
C
I
LHV Z
s
R
tw
x R
2
tw
kd i
C
F
HDH
_ _
ln
1 i
1 d
_ _ if iad,
(18)
N
P;H

P
2
C
I
LHV Z
s
R
tw
x R
2
tw
k1 i
C
F
HDH
if i d.
(19)
The total cost of heating over the lifetime per unit area the
insulated building in present dollar is given by
C
t;H
P
1
E
A;H
P
2
C
ins
. (20)
The net energy savings, optimum insulation thickness,
payback period and total cost for cooling can be expressed
similarly as
S
C

P
1
C
E
DU
COP
CDHP
2
C
I
x, (21)
x
op
;
C

P
1
C
E
kCDH
P
2
C
I
COP
_ _
1=2
R
tw
k, (22)
N
P;C

ln 1
P
2
C
I
COPR
tw
x R
2
tw
kd i
C
F
CDH
_ _
ln
1 i
1 d
_ _ if iad,
(23)
N
P;C

P
2
C
I
COPR
tw
x R
2
tw
k1 i
C
F
CDH
if i d, (24)
C
t;C
P
1
E
A;C
P
2
C
ins
. (25)
From Eqs. (17) and (22), it can be seen that the optimum
insulation thickness for heating or cooling depends on the
cost of energy and insulation material, as well as properties
of the wall and insulation material, COP of the cooling
system, efciency of the heating system, lifetime of the
equipment, and discount and ination rates. The para-
meters used in these calculations and their corresponding
values are given in Table 4. The efciency of the heating
system was considered to be constant and equal to 0.93,
whereas the average seasonal COP of the room air-
conditioners was taken to be 2.5.
5. Result and discussion
The purpose of this paper is the determination of the
optimum thickness of insulation with respect to cooling
and heating loads at various cities for a typical wall used
for the buildings in Turkey.
The variable base degree-hours method was used for the
determination of the buildings energy consumption for
heating and cooling loads. Values of heating and cooling
degree-hours with months are shown in Fig. 2 for the city
of Antalya by using 18 1C base temperature. The data
clearly indicates that the cooling degree-hours are greater
than heating degree-hours for the cities that lie in the
rst zone. Therefore, the optimum insulation thickness
ARTICLE IN PRESS
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
Months
D
e
g
r
e
e
-
H
o
u
r
s
Antalya CDH
HDH
Fig 2. Variation of monthly average heating and cooling degree-hours for
an 18 1C base temperature.
Fig. 3. (a) Annual heating and cooling transmission loads and (b) cost variation versus insulation thickness (for Antalya, T
b
18 1C).
A. Bolattu rk / Building and Environment 43 (2008) 10551064 1060
calculations must be based on cooling loads for maximum
energy savings.
Fig. 3(a) presents the changes in the annual cooling and
heating transmission loads per square meter of wall
according to insulation thickness. It is obvious that as the
insulation thickness increases, the transmission load
decreases. This heat transfer decrease is more rapid at
smaller insulation thicknesses. We observe diminishing
returns at larger values of the insulation thicknesses. The
decision to determine when to stop (to nd optimum
insulation thickness) should be based on a trade-off
between the incremental savings versus the incremental
cost. The heat transfer results are used as input data to the
economic model in order to determine the variation of the
cost of insulation material plus the present value of energy
consumption over the lifetime of building with insulation
thickness.
Fig. 3(b) shows cost variations and also compares the
cost curves for cooling and heating loads for Antalya. It is
noted that the energy cost decreases with increasing
insulation thickness. On the other hand, the insulation
cost increases linearly with insulation thickness and is
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Fig. 4. Comparison of optimum insulation thicknesses versus the base temperature for heating and cooling loads in the rst zone cities.
A. Bolattu rk / Building and Environment 43 (2008) 10551064 1061
independent of energy cost. A total cost is obtained when
the cost of energy consumption is added to the insulation
material cost with respect to insulation thickness for
cooling and heating loads (Fig. 3(b)). The total cost curve
produces a minimum that corresponds to the optimum
insulation thickness. It is noted that, at the optimum
insulation thickness, the contribution to the total cost from
either the energy cost or insulation cost is approximately
the same. Fig. 3(b) compares total costs, insulation cost,
energy costs and optimum insulation thicknesses for
cooling and heating loads over a lifetime of 10 years.
Optimum insulation thickness is 3.2 cm for cooling while it
is 2.5 cm for heating. One should select 3.2 cm, the
optimum insulation thickness based on cooling degree
hours, for the design insulation thickness since it provides a
higher energy savings for building.
The chosen value of base temperature is an important
parameter in calculating heating and cooling loads
according to degree-hours method. Selecting a lower base
temperature increases cooling load but decreases heating
load (Tables 2 and 3). In Fig. 4, the results of the insulation
thicknesses are shown for the selected rst zone cities.
According to the literature, a base temperature of 18 1C is
chosen. This base temperature is used in this study for
comparing energy savings and payback periods. As the
base temperature increases, the optimum insulation thick-
ness increases for heating load calculations. On the other
hand for cooling load calculations, the optimum insulation
thickness decreases with increasing base temperatures as
seen in Figs. 4(af). In all cities, the optimum insulation
thicknesses assume the highest values at 18 1C base
temperature. The optimum insulation thicknesses are
greater for cooling loads than for heating loads. Also,
there appears to be signicant variations in insulation
thicknesses with respect to cooling and heating loads. For
instance, the difference between calculated optimum
insulation thicknesses at Adana reaches to 80%, 2.1 cm
against 3.8 cm (Table 5). The optimum insulation thick-
nesses are generally high due to high energy costs in
Turkey.
At hot climate zones, it is important that optimum
insulation thickness calculations should be based on
cooling load for energy savings. The calculated energy
savings versus insulation thicknesses are shown in Fig. 5
for both heating and cooling load cases. Energy saving is
maximum at optimum insulation thickness. For instance in
Adana, energy saving for cooling load is 12.19 $/m
2
,
whereas energy saving for heating is 3.54 $/m
2
. Generally,
the energy savings increase with increasing cooling load.
The payback periods of optimum insulation costs for
cooling are smaller than that for heating. For instance in
Adana, the payback period is 3.39 years for cooling while it
is 4.87 years for heating. The optimum insulation
thicknesses at various cities in the rst zone with calculated
energy savings and payback periods for both cooling and
heating are given in Table 5.
The overall heat transfer coefcient (U) for external
walls is given as 0.80 W/m
2
K according to Turkish
Standards (TS 825) for heat insulation [26]. The U values
which are calculated from Eq. (8) are found to be changing
between 0.49 and 0.55 W/m
2
K for cooling against
0.610.80 W/m
2
K for heating in the rst zone cities.
Therefore, it is more appropriate to use a separate U value
for each city instead of using a constant value for all cities.
This point may be observed in Fig. 6 as more clearly.
Iskenderun is a city in Hatay province but optimum
insulation thickness, energy savings, and payback period in
Iskenderun and Hatay have appreciable differences with
respect to heating and cooling loads (Table 5).
6. Conclusion
One way to reduce energy consumption would be to limit
transmission loads to/from the buildings, and hence reduce
the demand for heating or air-conditioning. Considerable
energy savings can be obtained by using proper insulation
material in buildings. In this study, the optimum insulation
thicknesses on external walls of buildings were calculated
based on both annual heating and cooling loads. A typical
wall made of insulated polystyrene insulation was used.
The annual energy consumption for cooling and heating
loads per unit area of wall was computed using an
economic model over a lifetime of 10 years. Annual
cooling and heating loads were calculated using the
degree-hours method by considering solar radiation. The
determination of the optimum insulation thickness, energy
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 5
Optimum insulation thickness, energy savings and payback period for analyzed cities for cooling and heating loads (T
b
18 1C)
City Cooling Heating
Optimum insulation
thickness (m)
Energy savings
($/m
2
)
Payback period
(years)
Optimum insulation
thickness (m)
Energy savings
($/m
2
)
Payback period
(years)
Adana 0.038 12.19 3.39 0.021 3.54 4.87
Antalya 0.032 8.44 3.81 0.025 5.24 4.39
Aydn 0.033 8.96 3.74 0.027 6.36 4.15
Hatay 0.034 9.52 3.67 0.026 5.55 4.32
I

skenderun 0.037 11.30 3.47 0.016 2.20 5.47

I

zmir 0.032 8.47 3.81 0.027 6.14 4.19

Mersin 0.034 9.69 3.65 0.020 3.78 4.93
A. Bolattu rk / Building and Environment 43 (2008) 10551064 1062
savings, and payback period depend on energy and
insulation cost as well as the efciency of heating system,
COP of the cooling system, lifetime of building, and
ination and discount rates.
The results show that for heating load, optimum
insulation thickness vary between 1.6 and 2.7 cm, energy
savings vary between 2.20 and 6.6 $/m
2
, and payback
periods vary between 4.15 and 5.47 years depending on the
city. On the other hand, for cooling load, insulation
thickness vary between 3.2 and 3.8 cm, energy savings vary
between 8.47 and 12.19 $/m
2
, and payback periods vary
between 3.39 and 3.81 years. The results show that
optimization of insulation thickness in building walls with
respect to cooling load is more appropriate for energy
savings in Turkeys warmest rst zone. The variation in the
results of different cities for a given climate zone indicates
that the insulation calculations should be done separately
for each city and not for a climate zone.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Fig. 5. Comparison of energy savings over the lifetime versus insulation thickness for heating and cooling loads in selected cities.
A. Bolattu rk / Building and Environment 43 (2008) 10551064 1063
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Fig. 6. Comparison of two cities in the same zone. (a) Optimum insulation thickness versus base temperature and (b) energy savings versus insulation
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