Assessment of thermal performance of residential buildings in Ibadan Land, Nigeria

Thermal performance and efficiency of buildings are proportional to details of designs of the building, climate responsive design parameters, the use of site, details of microclimate and nature and magnitude of the fabrics. In this study, a field investigation was been carried out on four buildings with different system designs. Estimates of indoor air hourly values of surfaces temperature and environmental temperature were carried out systematically. From the regression analysis, the result showed the R-squared value as 85.2% indicating that there is a very strong relationship among the independent factors (Building types I-IV) on the dependent factor (ambient temperature). The F-value (index of reliability) is significant at 0.000; this implies that the effect of the building types is significant on the ambient temperature. The result also showed that the effect of the individual building type on the ambient temperature rank in the following increasing order: type I, type IV, type III and type II. Building type II had the greatest effect on the ambient temperature. It therefore recommends that provision of plasters on Adobe walls, ceilings, shading, proper positioning of the buildings and increase in the mass contents of the walls of the buildings can improve the thermal comfort of the rest there mass content building types. The paper recommends that adequate consideration must be given to effective building architecture and appropriate finishes operations on walls in order to achieve internal comfort for the occupants.