IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v33y2008i9p1959-1973.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Thermal behaviour and ventilation efficiency of a low-cost passive solar energy efficient house

Author

Listed:
  • Makaka, Golden
  • Meyer, Edson L.
  • McPherson, Michael

Abstract

Low-cost houses in South Africa are characterized by poor craftsmanship and design with no regard to energy efficient passive solar design features resulting in high electrical energy consumption, uncomfortable indoor thermal environment and poor ventilation efficiency. Incorporating energy efficiency passive solar design strategies and correct material choice can significantly reduce energy consumption in buildings. This paper presents the effects of fly ash to brick properties, thermal comfort analysis and the impact of the ventilation components to the indoor environment of a low-cost energy efficient passive solar house constructed using fly ash bricks. The addition of fly ash to clay improved brick properties. The house was monitored for a period covering all the South African seasons. In summer, the passive solar house was found to be thermally comfortable for 66% of the period monitored, while for winter it was about 79%. Windows were found to have a higher impact on the ventilation rates than doors. The indoor carbon dioxide concentration monitored over night was found to be 0.248%, which is less than the maximum range limit of 0.500%. The performance of the house was seen to depend on how the occupants operate the house. The house was found to create a thermally comfortable indoors environment and experienced minimal temperature and humidity swings, with a better performance in winter than summer.

Suggested Citation

  • Makaka, Golden & Meyer, Edson L. & McPherson, Michael, 2008. "Thermal behaviour and ventilation efficiency of a low-cost passive solar energy efficient house," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1959-1973.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:33:y:2008:i:9:p:1959-1973
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2007.11.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148107003722
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2007.11.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Oropeza-Perez, Ivan & Østergaard, Poul Alberg, 2014. "Potential of natural ventilation in temperate countries – A case study of Denmark," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 520-530.
    2. Chen, Xi & Yang, Hongxing & Lu, Lin, 2015. "A comprehensive review on passive design approaches in green building rating tools," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1425-1436.
    3. Overen Ochuko Kelvin & Meyer Leroy Edson & Makaka Golden, 2017. "Thermal, Economic and Environmental Analysis of a Low-Cost House in Alice, South Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-20, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:33:y:2008:i:9:p:1959-1973. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.