A system has been developed to reduce fluctuation of the indoor temperature in a radiant floor heating system. The system we developed and implemented is called BoilerMan. With the BoilerMan system the hot water circulation pump is controlled by computer software which implements a unique strategy. To minimize the system development time a user-friendly development environment was used. This development environment was useful in the implementation and testing of the efficiency of our strategy. The environment also serves as an easy means for system maintenance. The BoilerMan went through a few test runs against a real apartment house and the result showed significant reductions in the initial temperature overshoots against the target values. It also reduced the operatingtime of the hot water circulation pump. Such positive results were possible due to our unique strategy that exploits heating efficiency information collected from the past run of the very same system. Since the strategy was implemented with embedded software, it makes the BoilerMan flexible, too.

Recent apartment houses tend to expose the problems of unbalanced floor temperatures and real temperature due to changes in thermal performance arising from reinforced insulation and air tightness. In this study, the indoor thermal environment was analyzed against the apartment unit household in the type of individual heating, central heating, and District Heating methods in order to determine the operational status of indoor thermal environments and heating system by Heating supply systems. The temperature of hot water supplied at the time the indoor loads occurs to the maximum by Heating supply systems was found to rise in order to individual heating (70℃) , central heating(47℃) and District Heating (41℃). The hot water supply frequency showed variable changes in the range of 3 to 6 times per day in cases of individual heating while periodical changes was ranging from 3 or 4 times a day in the case of central heating and district heating. The width of variation of floor surface temperatures depending on the temperature of the supply water was found to be in order of Individual Heating, District Heating, and Central Heating. The average floor surface temperature appeared similar to the hot water supply temperature pattern in the order of 26.4 to 30.2℃ for Individual Heating, 28.2 to 28.6℃ for Central Heating, and 24.8 to 29.4℃for District Heating. In the case of non-heating where heating is not implemented, the temperature of the floor surface was 22.8℃ to 26.0℃ showing the same temperature as the indoor temperature. Heating supply appeared to be maintained in a stable manner overall in a sporadic manner ranging from 3 to 6 times a day, which was maintained in a stable manner on the whole regardless of the heating method.

Thermal neutrality is not enough to achieve thermal comfort. The temperature level can be the optimal, and still people may complain. This situation is often explained by the problem of local discomfort. Local discomfort can be caused by radiant asymmetry, local air velocities, too warm and too cold floor temperature and vertical temperature difference. This temperature difference may generate thermal discomfort due to different thermal sensation in different body parts. Therefore, thermal comfort can not be correctly evaluated without considering these differences. This study investigates thermal discomfort sensations of different body parts and its effect on overall thermal sensation and comfort in air-heating room. Experimental results of evaluating thermal discomfort at different body parts in an air-heating room showed that thermal sensation on the shoulder was significantly related to the overall thermal sensation and discomfort. Although it is known that cool-head, warm-foot condition is good for comfort living, cool temperature around the head generated discomfort

Draft is defined as an unwanted local cooling of the human body caused by air movement. It is a serious problem in many ventilated or air conditioned buildings. Often draft complaints occur although measured velocities in the occupied zone maybe lower than prescribed in existing standards. Purpose of this study is to clarify the evaluation of thermal comfort based on temperature and air velocity in winter. Experiments were performed in an environmental chamber in winter. Indoor temperature and air velocity was artificially controlled. The experiments were performed to evaluate temperature conditions and air velocity conditions by physiological and psychological responses of human. According to physiological responses and psychological responses, it was clear that the optimum air velocity is about 0.15 m/s and 0.30 m/s.