Energy Efficiency Renovation in Historical Building. Case Study: Maha Chulalongkom Building and Maha Vajiravudh Building, Chulalongkom University, Thailand

Humanities Information Center (HIC) Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand located in Maha Vajiravudh building. It is a National preserved building built since Chulalongkorn University established. This antique building made of brick and mortar in Thai contemporary architectural style. With external corridor around building, it had been used as lecture rooms with good ventilation at the upper doors and windows. In the old days, the micro climate was mostly in comfort zone during morning and evening. Hundred years passed by, university micro climate was changed. The ambient temperature has been risen up about 10 degrees Celsius during peak time of the day. Therefore, air temperature is out of comfort zone. Furthermore, building use was changed from lecture room to library. Heat sources from computers, copy machine, especially halogen lamp had been installed during renovation last few years. Air condition systems, split type system, were installed in some reading areas. The condensing units make the outdoor air temperature raises and blows into the building. Thailand locates in hot humid climate which is too hot and too humid exceed human comfort zone most of the time. Therefore, library users feel extremely uncomforted for thermal, visual, and acoustics. The University policy indicates that the library hall should be natural ventilation. Then, the acoustics problems would be excluded. The research conducted with finding all thermal and visual factors. It was found that appliances are the internal heat sources, and poor illumination on working plane. The inside air temperature ranged 30 to 32 degree Celsius. The illuminate on working plane was 200 to 256 lux. Appliances were relocated with exhaust heat to the openings. All halogen lamps were replaced by LED. The illuminance was improved to 400 lux on working plane. The air temperature was reduced to 2 to 3 degree Celsius. After, internal heat sources were reduced, then seeking for cool sources. There are air conditioning rooms nearby with exhaust fans which still has low air temperature. Then, all exhaust cool air was used to bypass to the library hall. The inside air temperature, now, reach to comfort zone with low mean radiant temperature (MRT). This study showed the way to make historical building to reach comfort condition. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2017 International Conference on Alternative Energy in Developing Countries and Emerging Economies.