Effects of Using Coconut Fiber–Insulated Masonry Walls to Achieve Energy Efficiency and Thermal Comfort in Residential Dwellings

Abstract

In most developing countries with a tropical climate, the benefits of insulating external masonry walls are often overlooked, and there is little or no effort to reduce the energy consumed. Apart from the comfort challenges, there is a concern of increasing energy consumption due to the rise in air temperatures and air-conditioning loads in building. Because building walls constitute the largest part of a building, there is a need to design sustainable building walls that can bring about energy efficiency and reduce cooling load by using the approach of wall insulation. Hence, this study involved the use of coconut-fiber insulation to achieve energy efficiency and thermal comfort in residential dwellings. Coconut fiber is a by-product from other industries and can be used for thermal insulation by placement in the cores of masonry block walls (i.e., as a loose-fill insulator). As such, an experiment was set up to estimate the effect of using coconut fiber–insulated masonry walls to achieve energy efficiency and thermal comfort in residential dwellings. The experiment made used of two identical physical small-scale envelope models to investigate the effects of using coconut fiber–insulated masonry walls. During the testing, the walls of the two models were insulated with coconut fiber as well as fiberglass board to determine their thermal benefits. Coconut fiber was found to be the preferred insulator because it has the required attributes to maintain thermal comfort and improve the energy efficiency of residential dwellings. The results also show that coconut fiber was able to improve the energy efficiency of the envelope physical models. This application is intended for low cost-residential buildings in a hot, dry climate.