Thermal insulating material for low-income housing.

ESTEVES, ALFREDO; GANEM, CAROLINA; FERNANDEZ, ESTEBAN; JORGE MITCHELL

Santiago de Chile, Chile

Conferencia; 20th PLEA - International Conferense on Passive Low Energy Architecture. Rethinking development. Are we producing a people oriented habitat?; 2003

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

To improve the energy conservation conditions of low-income housing, it is proposed a cheap thermal insulating material based in the use of cane (arundo donax). This insulation material is applied in a preexistent wall in a frame, horizontally rather than vertically; located in the exterior side of the wall to account with its own thermal mass towards the interior of the spaces improving the thermal inertia of the building. Insulation properties have been evaluated resulting in 0.209 °C.m²/W for each row of cane. When applied to typical low-income houses it is obtained near 40% of savings in  the necessary annual energy for heating and a reduction of 32% in power devices for heating.