Footprint of Three Walls Systems in Low Cost Housing in Colima, Mexico

ARVIZU, V; GOMEZ AZPEITIA, G; ARENA, A.P.

Mendoza

Conferencia; Vth International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment CILCA 2013; 2013

Grupo CLIOPE, Universidad Tecnologica Nacional, Facultad Regional Mendoza

Along the Mexican territory you can find a wide variety of climates covering cold, warm and temperate regions, however, low cost housing does not considers as part of its design process, aspects necessary to enable an adaptation to these different conditions. The use of the cheapest materials and not necessarily the best suited to the climatic conditions of each site, is a common denominator that can be seen in this type of housing. This not only results in an economic impact generated by high energy consumption to achieve thermal comfort inside these houses, but also produce different types of environmental impacts through the generation of solid, liquid and gas emissions, which are generally not regulated by the competent authorities. Some of these impacts are related to the problem of Global Warming, and specifically with the Greenhouse Gases issue, CO2 being one of the most important in this matter. In order to contribute to the generation of knowledge on environmental matter in the field of construction of massive housing, the National Housing Commission (a Mexican institution) has funded this work as part of the Life Cycle Analysis of Affordable Housing in Mexico. Case Study: The Walls Construction Systems in the city of Colima, Mexico. This study's main objective is to dimension and asses the Carbon Footprint of the entire life cycle of the main wall construction systems used in low cost housing in Mexico. The main purpose comes with the aim of establishing a series of recommendations to the principal players in the field of design and construction of such housing.