Comparative Study of Indoor Environment in Residential Buildings in Hot Humid Climate of Malaysia

There-s a lack in understanding the indoor climate of Malaysian residential. The assumption of traditional house could provide the best indoor environment is too good to be true. This research is to understand indoor environment in three types of Malaysian residential and thermo recorder TR72Ui were placed in indoor spaces for measurement. There are huge differences of indoor environment between housing types, and building material helps to control indoor climate. Traditional house indoor climate was similar to the outdoor. Temperature in the bedroom of terrace and town houses were slightly higher than the living room. Indoor temperature was 2oC lower in the rainy season than the hot season. It was hard to control indoor humidity level in traditional house compared with terrace and town house. As for conclusion, town house provides the best thermal environment to the building occupants and can be improved with good roof insulation.

The Research of Taiwan Green Building Materials (GBM) system and GBM Eco-Efficiency Model on Climate Change

The globe Sustainability has become the subject of international attention, the key reason is that global climate change. Climate and disasters around the abnormal frequency multiplier, the global temperature of the catastrophe and disaster continue to occur throughout the world, as well as countries around the world. Currently there are many important international conferences and policy, it is a "global environmental sustainability " and "living human health " as the goal of development, including the APEC 2007 meeting to "climate Clean Energy" as the theme Sydney Declaration, 2008 World Economic Forum's "Carbon - promote Cool Earth energy efficiency improvement project", the EU proposed "Green Idea" program, the Japanese annual policy, "low-carbon society, sustainable eco-city environment (Eco City) "And from 2009 to 2010 to promote the "Eco-Point" to promote green energy and carbon reduction products .And the 2010 World Climate Change Conference (COP16 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen), the world has been the subject of Negative conservative "Environmental Protection ", "save energy consumption, " into a positive response to the "Sustainable " and" LOHAS", while Taiwan has actively put forward eco-cities, green building, green building materials and other related environmental response Measures, especially green building construction environment that is the basis of factors, the most widely used application level, and direct contact with human health and the key to sustainable planet. "Sustainable development "is a necessary condition for continuation of the Earth, "healthy and comfortable" is a necessary condition for the continuation of life, and improve the "quality" is a necessary condition for economic development, balance between the three is "to enhance the efficiency of ", According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) for the "environmental efficiency "(Eco-Efficiency) proposed: " the achievement of environmental efficiency, the price to be competitive in the provision of goods or services to meet people's needs, improve living Quality at the same time, the goods or services throughout the life cycle. Its impact on the environment and natural resource utilization and gradually reduced to the extent the Earth can load. "whichever is the economy "Economic" and " Ecologic". The research into the methodology to obtain the Taiwan Green Building Material Labeling product as the scope of the study, by investigating and weight analysis to explore green building environmental load (Ln) factor and the Green Building Quality (Qn) factor to Establish green building environmental efficiency assessment model (GBM Eco-Efficiency). And building materials for healthy green label products for priority assessment object, the object is set in the material evidence for the direct response to the environmental load from the floor class-based, explicit feedback correction to the Green Building environmental efficiency assessment model, "efficiency " as a starting point to achieve balance between human "health "and Earth "sustainable development of win-win strategy. The study is expected to reach 1.To establish green building materials and the quality of environmental impact assessment system, 2. To establish value of GBM Eco-Efficiency model, 3. To establish the GBM Eco-Efficiency model for application of green building material feedback mechanisms.

Low-Cost Eco-Friendly Building Material: A Case Study in Ethiopia

This work presents a low-cost and eco-friendly building material named Agrostone panel. Africa-s urban population is growing at an annual rate of 2.8% and 62% of its population will live in urban areas by 2050. As a consequence, many of the least urbanized and least developed African countries- will face serious challenges in providing affordable housing to the urban dwellers. Since the cost of building materials accounts for the largest proportion of the overall construction cost, innovating low-cost building material is vital. Agrostone panel is used in housing projects in Ethiopia. It uses raw materials of agricultural/industrial wastes and/or natural minerals as a filler, magnesium-based chemicals as a binder and fiberglass as reinforcement. Agrostone panel reduces the cost of wall construction by 50% compared with the conventional building materials. The pros and cons of Agrostone panel as well as the use of other waste materials as a raw material to make the panel more sustainable, low-cost and better properties are discussed.

The Significance of Embodied Energy in Certified Passive Houses

Certifications such as the Passive House Standard aim to reduce the final space heating energy demand of residential buildings. Space conditioning, notably heating, is responsible for nearly 70% of final residential energy consumption in Europe. There is therefore significant scope for the reduction of energy consumption through improvements to the energy efficiency of residential buildings. However, these certifications totally overlook the energy embodied in the building materials used to achieve this greater operational energy efficiency. The large amount of insulation and the triple-glazed high efficiency windows require a significant amount of energy to manufacture. While some previous studies have assessed the life cycle energy demand of passive houses, including their embodied energy, these rely on incomplete assessment techniques which greatly underestimate embodied energy and can lead to misleading conclusions. This paper analyses the embodied and operational energy demands of a case study passive house using a comprehensive hybrid analysis technique to quantify embodied energy. Results show that the embodied energy is much more significant than previously thought. Also, compared to a standard house with the same geometry, structure, finishes and number of people, a passive house can use more energy over 80 years, mainly due to the additional materials required. Current building energy efficiency certifications should widen their system boundaries to include embodied energy in order to reduce the life cycle energy demand of residential buildings.

Adaptive Climate Responsive Vernacular Construction in High Altitude

In the traditional architecture, buildings were designed to achieve human comfort by using locally available building materials and construction technology which were more responsive to their climatic and geographic condition. This paper will try to bring out the wisdom of the local masons and builders, often the inhabitants themselves, about their way of living, and shaping their built environment, indoor and outdoor spaces, as a response to the local climatic conditions, from the findings of a field settlement.

Study on Numerical Simulation Applied to Moisture Buffering Design Method – The Case Study of Pine Wood in a Single Zone Residential Unit in Taiwan

A good green building design project, designers should consider not only energy consumption, but also healthy and comfortable needs of inhabitants. In recent years, the Taiwan government paid attentions on both carbon reduction and indoor air quality issues, which be presented in the legislation of Building Codes and other regulations. Taiwan located in hot and humid climates, dampness in buildings leads to significant microbial pollution and building damage. This means that the high temperature and humidity present a serious indoor air quality issue. The interactions between vapor transfers and energy fluxes are essential for the whole building Heat Air and Moisture (HAM) response. However, a simulation tool with short calculation time, property accuracy and interface is needed for practical building design processes. In this research, we consider the vapor transfer phenomenon of building materials as well as temperature and humidity and energy consumption in a building space. The simulation bases on the EMPD method, which was performed by EnergyPlus, a simulation tool developed by DOE, to simulate the indoor moisture variation in a one-zone residential unit based on the Effective Moisture Penetration Depth Method, which is more suitable for practical building design processes.

An Overview of Sludge Utilization into Fired Clay Brick

Brick is one of the most common masonry units used as building material. Due to the demand, different types of waste have been investigated to be incorporated into the bricks. Many types of sludge have been incorporated in fired clay brick for example marble sludge, stone sludge, water sludge, sewage sludge, and ceramic sludge. The utilization of these waste materials in fired clay bricks usually has positive effects on the properties such as lightweight bricks with improved shrinkage, porosity, and strength. This paper reviews on utilization of different types of sludge wastes into fired clay bricks. Previous investigations have demonstrated positive effects on the physical and mechanical properties as well as less impact towards the environment. Thus, the utilizations of sludge waste could produce a good quality of brick and could be one of alternative disposal methods for the sludge wastes.

Determination of Moisture Diffusivity of AACin Drying Phase using Genetic Algorithm

The current practice of determination of moisture diffusivity of building materials under laboratory conditions is predominantly aimed at the absorption phase. The main reason is the simplicity of the inverse analysis of measured moisture profiles. However, the liquid moisture transport may exhibit significant hysteresis. Thus, the moisture diffusivity should be different in the absorption (wetting) and desorption (drying) phase. In order to bring computer simulations of hygrothermal performance of building materials closer to the reality, it is then necessary to find new methods for inverse analysis which could be used in the desorption phase as well. In this paper we present genetic algorithm as a possible method of solution of the inverse problem of moisture transport in desorption phase. Its application is demonstrated for AAC as a typical building material.

Expanding Affordable Housing through Inclusionary Zoning in the City of Toronto

Reasonably priced and well-constructed housing must be an integral and element supporting a healthy society. The absence of housing everyone in society can afford negatively affects the people's health, education, ability to get jobs, develop their community. Without access to decent housing, economic development, integration of immigrants and inclusiveness, the society is negatively impacted. Canada has a sterling record in creating housing compared to many other nations around the globe. Canadian housing gets support from a mature and responsive mortgage network and a top-quality construction industry as well as safe and excellent quality building materials that are readily available. Yet 1.7 million Canadian households occupy substandard abodes. During the past hundred years, Canada's government has made a wide variety of attempts to provide decent residential facilities every Canadian can afford. Despite these laudable efforts, today Canada is left with housing that is inadequate for many Canadians. People who own their housing are given all kinds of privileges and perks, while people with relatively low incomes who rent their apartments or houses are discriminated against. To help solve these problems, zoning that is based on an "inclusionary" philosophy is tool developed to help provide people the affordable residences that they need. No, thirty years after its introduction, this type of zoning has been shown effective in helping build and provide Canadians with a houses or apartments they can afford to pay for. Using this form of zoning can have different results +depending on where and how it is used. After examining Canadian affordable housing and four American cases where this type of zoning was enforced in the USA, this makes various recommendations for expanding Canadians' access to housing they can afford.

Bamboo -An Alternative Building Material for Modest Houses, to Increase the Stock of Affordable Housing, for the Urban Poor Living Close to Bamboo Producing Regions in India

A large section of the society in Urban India is unable to afford a basic dwelling unit. Housing shortage due to the rising unafforability makes it logical to consider alternative technologies more seriously for their application How far do these alternative technologies match up with the conventional techniques? How do these integrate with the present-day need for urban amenities and facilities? Are the owners of bamboo dwellings, for instance, a part of the mainstream housing sector, having the same rights and privileges as those enjoyed by other property owners? Will they have access to loans for building, improving, renovating or repairing their dwellings? Why do we still hesitate to build a bamboo house for ourselves? Is our policy framework and political resolve in place, to welcome such alternative technologies? It is time we found these answers, in order to explore the reasons for large-scale nonacceptance, of a technology proven for its worthiness.

Adoption of Appropriate and Cost Effective Technologies in Housing: Indian Experience

Construction cost in India is increasing at around 50 per cent over the average inflation levels. It have registered increase of up to 15 per cent every year, primarily due to cost of basic building materials such as steel, cement, bricks, timber and other inputs as well as cost of labour. As a result, the cost of construction using conventional building materials and construction is becoming beyond the affordable limits particularly for low-income groups of population as well as a large cross section of the middle - income groups. Therefore, there is a need to adopt cost-effective construction methods either by up-gradation of traditional technologies using local resources or applying modern construction materials and techniques with efficient inputs leading to economic solutions. This has become the most relevant aspect in the context of the large volume of housing to be constructed in both rural and urban areas and the consideration of limitations in the availability of resources such as building materials and finance. This paper makes an overview of the housing status in India and adoption of appropriate and cost effective technologies in the country.

Green Building Materials: Hemp Oil Based Biocomposites

Novel acrylated epoxidized hemp oil (AEHO) based bioresins were successfully synthesised, characterized and applied to biocomposites reinforced with woven jute fibre. Characterisation of the synthesised AEHO consisted of acid number titrations and FTIR spectroscopy to assess the success of the acrylation reaction. Three different matrices were produced (vinylester (VE), 50/50 blend of AEHO/VE and 100% AEHO) and reinforced with jute fibre to form three different types of biocomposite samples. Mechanical properties in the form of flexural and interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) were investigated and compared for the different samples. Results from the mechanical tests showed that AEHO and 50/50 based neat bioresins displayed lower flexural properties compared with the VE samples. However when applied to biocomposites and compared with VE based samples, AEHO biocomposites demonstrated comparable flexural performance and improved ILSS. These results are attributed to improved fibre-matrix interfacial adhesion due to surface-chemical compatibility between the natural fibres and bioresin.