The Miracle of Insulation in Hot-Humid Climate Building

Abstract

Building is a climate modifier for humans. Most designers today focus on functions in the buildings and leave the issue of human comfort conditions to engineers who use mechanical systems to modify the interior environment. Energy and CO₂ emissions are influencing factors in the global warming phenomenon. One alternative in the solution of these problems is reducing energy consumption by using insulation materials in the building envelope. Insulation materials provide many benefits to the building, such as reducing energy consumption, increasing comfort, ease of installation, light weight, and low cost. For instance, proper insulation in the roof should consider time lag, insulation property, condensation, and thermal bridge. As a result, the benefits include reduced cooling requirements up to 10 times that of a conventional building, and improving mean radiant temperature (MRT) by approximately 30% thereby increasing human comfort. The results show that properly installed insulation will save half of the cooling load from the building envelope.