# Improving the Energy Efficiency of the Modular Buildings
## 3 Methodology
### Experimental Setup and Materials for Everton Site Drying Room  
The Everton site drying room is located on the first floor; it contains 15 non-partitioned cabins, which are highlighted in green (Figure 1) and surrounded by other spaces such as a male and female sanitary area, cleaner's store, and male shower. The drying room, accommodating 700 lockers, currently doubles as a changing area and drying space. However, inefficient heating practices lead to unnecessary energy consumption. To remedy this, separating the drying room (Figure 1) into drying space and changing area is proposed. This would confine heat to the drying area, with controlled access for hanging garments. Implementing automation for precise drying times could optimise energy usage and minimise waste. The modelled area is highlighted in green (Figure 1). The drying room dimensions and construction materials reflecting the u-values have been provided in Tables 1 and 2.  
The type of heaters used in the simulation are local room heater-fanned, with a power of 3 kW and a set point temperature of 30 \({}^{\circ}\)C, as this is the temperature setpoint selected in the thermostat.  
There are two types of sensors installed in the drying room: Lascar EL-USB-1, Temperature Data Logger (STC) and LASCAR Temperature and Humidity USB Data Logger--EL-USB-2 (STH), as shown in the images (Figure 2a,b). These sensors measure and store relative humidity and temperature readings and offer user-settable logging rates, start-times, and alarms, allowing for humidity, temperature, and dewpoint data to be graphed and printed via a PC USB port and free-to-use easylog USB 7.6 software. STCs are connected to thermocouples and are placed just in front of the supply grill of each fan heater to measure temperature (see Figure 3). The primary purpose of these sensors was to monitor the operation profile of all the heaters from the temperature variation graph.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l l l} \hline \hline  & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Composition**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Thickness (mm)**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**U-Value (W/m\({}^{2}\cdot\)K)**} \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{External wall} & Steel & 0.6 & \multirow{3}{*}{0.5} \\  & Firestop10 & 10 & \\  & Thermocore40 & 34 & \\  & Steel & 0.6 & \\ \hline Internal partition & Thermocore & 50 & 0.39 \\ \hline Ceiling & Thermocore 32 & 40 & 0.5 \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{External door} & Vinyl & 3 & \\  & Rockwood insulation & 60 & \\  & Cement particle & 8 & \\  & board & & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{External door} & Steel & 1.5 & \multirow{3}{*}{2.2} \\  & Mineral wool & 45 & \\  & Steel & 1.5 & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Window} & Galvanised steel sheet & 0.6 & \multirow{3}{*}{1.3} \\  & Honeycomb & 40 & \\  & Galvanised steel sheet & 0.6 & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Window} & Outer pane & 6 & \multirow{3}{*}{1.3} \\  & Cavity & 15 & \\ \cline{1-1}  & Inner pane & 6 & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 2: Construction materials of the drying room from Operations and Maintenance manual.  
Figure 3: STC sensors distribution.  
Figure 2: (a) Temperature sensor (b) humidity sensor to track heater functioning time and room conditions.