The Effect of Peat Soil on Room Temperature in Type-36 Housing in Palangkaraya

Abstract

Settlement and housing development is the main activity in arranging the spatial layout of Palangkaraya, focusing mainly on the small-type house like type-36. Most of the type-36 housings planned by the developer are on peatland. Indonesia's Public Housing Minister states that the type-36 house is appropriate for the minimum health standard. The construction system used in type-36 housing in Palangkaraya is reinforced concrete frame construction, light concrete brick wall, ceramic floor, light steel roof (roof cover made of multiroof material), and rubble stone or chicken claw foundation, and located on peatland. The authors checked the peatland using an infrared camera (FLIR i5) as the instrument. The result showed that the most significant room heat gain came from conducted peat soil (heat transfer) toward the foundation and then followed with the building's floor and wall. Such the process is called thermal bridges. From the thermal bridges process, the authors tried to solve the problem by developing thermal barriers to overcome the heat entering the type-36 house. This research used an experimental and simulation method using CFD-CADalyzer software.Data included peat temperature affecting the building temperature collected using an IR FLIR i5 camera and an infrared thermometer. Soil temperature, air humidity, and wind speed data were taken from Palangkaraya's BMKG (Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency). The research result was a foundation design that reduced heat gain (thermal barriers) due to the thermal bridges process. It added thermal insulation made of mineral wool and polyurethane to the existing foundation. These materials are integrating the rubble stone foundation by adding heat-insulating (mineral wool and polyurethane) materials only. The materials lowered the room temperature from 47.4°C and 45.8°C to 34oC -33oC. The not recommended alternative is to use sole (chicken claw) foundation structure on which the air cavity was developing. It makes the room temperature hotter, due to air expansion process occurring because of heat transfer on floor and wall materials without using heat insulation.