History of CommHEAT

The Polk County Health Department started the project with a simple research question: Why do some residential buildings without AC warm up more than others during summer heat? Three volunteer homes without AC received Onset Hobo sensors for the summer of 2017 

The Mobile Diagnostics Lab (MDL) was completed at the end of August 2017: Link to MDL here: 

https://www.cber.iastate.edu/projects/mdl

The MDL was funded by the US National Science Foundation Grant Number EPS-1101284 

SimAUD 2018: Developing a Workflow to Integrate Tree Inventory Data into Urban Energy Models paper presented at TU Delft conference 

Fourth annual 2018 HiBR 

Conference: Health in Buildings for Today and Tomorrow: 

Making Connections NIH July 2018 

October 2018 Ulrike Passe and Des Moines Urban Forestry David Jahn present The Role of Urban Forests in Sustainable Communities 

Decision Support Tools to Increase Resilience  

in Urban Neighborhoods at the Dubuque Sustainability conference 

First proposal submission 

April 2019 Comfort at the Extreme Conference Dubai 

Second proposal submission 

SUS RURI workshop at Iowa State University: https://sus-ruri.pubpub.org/ 

Invited presentation at ASHRAE Orlando conference: The impact of trees on passive survivability during extreme heat events in warm and humid regions 

Building & Cities paper & first MDL vegetation measurements 

Integrating landscape tactics into building energy performance evaluation based on urban morphometry at PLEA 2020 (Virtual) 

Virtual presentation: THERMAL DELIGHT 
  IMPACT OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN ON BUILDING ENERGY PERFORMANCE USING COMPUTER SIMULATION TOOLS 

Third SCC proposal submitted 

Second summer of MDL vegetation measurements 

IBPC paper presentation / NCUR presentation Tobi Fagbule & Rushi Patel 

ACSA AIA Intersections conference presentation (Virtual) 

Final SCC CommHeat proposal submitted in April 

ARCC_EAAE conference paper (Sydney Collin) 

SCC CommHeat award announce 

Team prepares to start work and connects with neighborhood association 

January 2023, project start 

First in home and quick capture data collection 

ET Rate data collection in Capitol East neighborhood 

Weather station data collected in Capitol East neighborhood 

Team attends National Night Out BBQ in Ashfield Park 

Negar Salahi MS student starts analyzing data 

Team prepared for second summer data collection 

Research Experience for Teachers (RET) with Connie Simonsen and Macey  Smith at Harding Middle School 

Design Jam at Local Library with Harding Middle School students 

Second in home data collection in Capitol East and Highland Park neighborhood  (18 participants)