guiding housing and human settlement investment - CSIR

lead to an estimated reduction of CO2
emissions of about one ton per house,” says
Van Wyk.
Standard low-income houses have no ceilings
and thus no insulation, which results in huge
variations in indoor temperatures. “We
improved the thermal performance of the
house’s roof significantly by adding an insulation
material that doubles up as a ceiling.
In addition, the orientation of the house also
provides optimum natural thermal performance
and comfort. The house is orientated
for maximising the winter sun, ensuring
bedrooms can benefit from sunlight, while
the living room faces north.”
Additions
“For improved energy efficiency and less
dependence on municipal services, we
decided to include some additions. These are
a standard, commercial solar water heater on
top of the roof for providing home owners
with hot water. A photo-voltaic panel above
the front door furthermore powers five LED
lights and a cell phone charger inside the
house,” says Van Wyk.
As part of an integrated approach, a water
tank was installed next to the house for harvesting
rainwater off the roof.
Pilot study
The CSIR’s low-income housing initiative is a
research project-in-progress. Researchers are
currently undertaking performance analyses
of the demonstration house, doing initial lifecycle
assessments and energy simulations.
| H U M A N S E T T L E M E N T S | C O N S T R U C T I O N | B U I L D I N G S |
To put the advances achieved in this project in perspective,
the following statistics hold true for households in South Africa:
20% of households do not use electricity for lighting
42% of homes do not use electricity for heating
34% of units do not use electricity for cooking
53% of households have no access to piped water inside the unit
45% of households have no access to flush toilets connected to sewerage facilities
The local authority of the Overstrand Municipality
in the Western Cape is collaborating
with the CSIR and the DST in a pilot study
within the local community in Kleinmond.
Incorporating many features of the CSIRdeveloped
low-income demonstration house,
441 pilot units are being built in an existing
housing development. The local authorities
are responsible for the occupancy waiting
list, along with a community liaison officer
deployed to interface with the community
regarding expectations.
“We are expecting that the first pilot houses
will be ready for occupation by December
2010, with the last houses set for completion
by March 2011. The DST has commissioned
us to monitor and evaluate the pilot houses in
Kleinmond after one year’s occupation to
determine the performance improvements
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achieved throughout the four seasons. If one
looks at the data obtained for the CSIR
demonstration house from preliminary performance
assessments and simulations, we are
very excited about the possible extrapolated
data and performance that could be associated
with the 411 houses under construction,”
concludes Van Wyk.
– Hilda van Rooyen
Enquiries:
Llewellyn van Wyk
lvwyk@csir.co.za