This study aims to determine the optimal approach for evaluating thermal comfort in an office that uses natural ventilation as the main conditioning strategy; the office is located in Quito-Ecuador. The performance of the adaptive model included in CEN Standard EN15251 and the traditional PMV model are compared with reports of thermal environment satisfaction surveys presented simultaneously to all occupants of the office to determine which of the two comfort models is most suitable to evaluate the thermal environment. The results indicate that office occupants have developed some degree of adaptation to the climatic conditions of the city where the office is located (which only demands heating operation), and tend to accept and even prefer lower operative temperatures than those considered optimum by applying the PMV model. This is an indication that occupants of naturally conditioned buildings are usually able to match their comfort temperature to their normal environment. Therefore, the application of the adaptive model included in CEN Standard EN15251 seems like the optimal approach for evaluating thermal comfort in naturally conditioned buildings, because it takes into consideration the adaptive principle that indicates that if a change occurs such as to produce discomfort, people tend to react in ways which restore their comfort.

This data article presents files supporting calculation for urban heat island (UHI) inclusion in building performance simulation (BPS). Methodology is used in the research article "From urban climate to energy consumption. Enhancing building performance simulation by including the urban heat island effect" (Palme et al., 2017) [1]. In this research, a Geographical Information System (GIS) study is done in order to statistically represent the most important urban scenarios of four South-American cities (Guayaquil, Lima, Antofagasta and Valparaíso). Then, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is done to obtain reference Urban Tissues Categories (UTC) to be used in urban weather simulation. The urban weather files are generated by using the Urban Weather Generator (UWG) software (version 4.1 beta). Finally, BPS is run out with the Transient System Simulation (TRNSYS) software (version 17). In this data paper, four sets of data are presented: 1) PCA data (excel) to explain how to group different urban samples in representative UTC; 2) UWG data (text) to reproduce the Urban Weather Generation for the UTC used in the four cities (4 UTC in Lima, Guayaquil, Antofagasta and 5 UTC in Valparaíso); 3) weather data (text) with the resulting rural and urban weather; 4) BPS models (text) data containing the TRNSYS models (four building models).

The external environment directly influences human health. However, what happens inside? This work deals with the effect that the interior thermal variables have on the propagation of respiratory diseases and focused on the relation of the temperature and relative humidity inside social housing in the 1040 parishes of Ecuador and the transmission of influenza. On the one hand, historical weather-related variables were used to simulate and estimate the interior conditions, and thresholds on temperature and humidity were determined. On the other hand, the health-related variable was determined by analyzing the statistics corresponding to the influenza and viral pneumonia in 2009 since that year was critical for these diseases; the data were divided by month for each parish. Finally, the correlation of these variables determines the relative importance of the interior conditions on the respiratory health of its inhabitants. The preliminary results indicate that the places with the lowest temperatures and relative humidity could favor the virus transmission. Also, the analysis indicated that respiratory diseases increase in August and October. In this way, it is clear that social housing projects in Ecuador require a study which guarantees not only energy efficiency and sustainability related issues but also the well-being of their inhabitants.

Las normas de energía en edificaciones (NEE) son políticas importantes de reducción de energía, emisiones y costos. A su vez, contribuyen a que las edificaciones existentes y nuevas se beneficien de las medidas y estrategias actuales de eficiencia. Simular, cuantificar y comparar el impacto de la implementación de la Norma Ecuatoriana de la Construcción (NEC), principalmente el capítulo de eficiencia energética en edificaciones residenciales (NEC-HS-EE) en viviendas tipo en términos de consumo de energía y su aporte a la reducción de GEI, como estrategia de mitigación al cambio climático. Se simuló con el programa DesignBuilder V.4.07 y analizó el comportamiento térmico y energético de dos viviendas tipo ubicados en la ciudad de Guayaquil, provincia del Guayas la cual reporta un consumo de energía promedio de 1672.48kWh/hab por año. Se realizó un análisis comparativo de sin/con la implementación de la NEC-HS-EE en el siguiente orden, 1) distribución de las temperaturas ambiente y operativa (interior de la vivienda), 2) balance de energía como resultado del intercambio de energía producto de la transferencia de calor en los diferentes elementos constructivos de la vivienda, 3) consumo de energía como producto del equipamiento y la actividad normal de los habitantes y los diferentes requerimientos energéticos de los equipos de acondicionamiento de aire y 4) emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) expresadas en kgCO2eq/m2/año. Los resultados mostraron que con la aplicación de la NEC-HS-EE se contribuyó a una reducción de emisiones de GEI, así como una disminución de la temperatura operativa en ambas viviendas. En términos reales, la aplicación de la NEC-HS-EE representó una reducción total de 1046kWh/m2 equivalentes a 934.4 kgCO2-eq por año en la "Vivienda tipo con acabados medios", y de 0.93 kWh/m2 equivalentes a 18.42 kgCO2-eq por año en la vivienda "Juntos por ti". Esta investigación establece una evaluación comparativa, sobre los beneficios derivados de las normas de energía en edificaciones y contribuyen al desarrollo de conceptos e instrumentos de etiquetado en edificaciones. Finalmente, como estrategia de mitigación al cambio climático, se propone la necesidad del desarrollo de estrategias complementarias de reducción de emisiones GEI que incluyan esquemas de etiquetado para los usuarios residenciales, así como ampliar la tipología de edificaciones sujetas a la NEC-HS-EE más allá del uso residencial.