Indoor Thermal Environments Investigation in Winter of Rural Houses in Yinchuan

The main considerations of building some new-type rural houses in Yinchuan are to improve indoor thermal environment and to reduce heating energy consumption by passive solar use and high-insulation envelope. Two houses were measured, a traditional one with adobe walls and a wooden roof, and a newly-built one with straw-bale insulation. Results show: (1) the linear layout of the traditional house leads to a higher heating energy consumption than the new one with climatic buffers; (2) the new house with straw-bale bricks have better thermal insulation performance than the traditional one with adobe wall; (3) lacking thermal storage is one of the main causes of larger indoor temperature fluctuation in the new house; (4) as a traditional partial interval heating mode, the “Kang”(a bed-stove made of bricks or fired clay) in the bedroom uses energy efficiently and improves the indoor thermal comfort.