ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 603

combined with air-cooling systems (to dissipate excess summer production) and heat-pump to
provide space heating. Preliminary estimations indicated that solar energy could supply all domestic energy demands and even produce enough additional electricity to supply a second home
with similar characteristics. Total costs would be about 10% of the house value, mainly involving
building modification and equipment, including provision of a new space for storage equipment,
batteries and heating system. These results suggest a real possibility for homes in the zone to be
both autonomous in their energy needs and could even produce surplus energy for other urban
activities. The designs were acceptable to the general public, required low maintenance costs and
offered potential for sustainable massive housing.

Conclusions
This study reviews the general conditions for housing in Chile. It highlights the development of
diverse public programmes and private housing initiatives and incipient concern on sustainable
building. Private developers have enjoyed sizeable participation in the housing market, providing
a significant proportion of homes for the country’s growing population and burgeoning economy. Geographical and social differences are visible in the country, with differences in single-family
housing types built with mixed materials (brick or concrete and timber) and residential blocks or
high-rise department buildings in concrete. Recent state regulations and environmental improvement programmes, including those involving renewable energy systems, are also mentioned. The
study then reviews data on the environmental performance of housing in Chile according to the
monitoring and resident consultation of ten homes in Concepción. These proved to suffer from
high energy consumption rates with variable to poor thermal comfort levels in winter due to high
permeability and thermal transmittance through the building envelope. The common and unregulated use of firewood for space heating also leads to urban pollution problems in the south of
the country. A strategy is then presented for simulating energy performance and formulating retrofit packages. These measures are then implemented in three of the case studies with relatively
low financial investments providing substantial savings in energy demand and enhanced comfort
levels that were perceived positively by residents and increased the value of the property. A parametric modelling and design exercise is then presented for one housing development model,
showing the incidence of the morphology and terraced design on environmental performance.
This allows more sustainable home designs to be proposed without any cost increase. Lastly, the
possibility of inserting active solar collection systems on the roofs of housing developments and
facades of multi-family buildings is explored. This confirms that solar technology can provide a
significant contribution to home energy demand in middle latitude cities, notwithstanding the
technological and financial limitations.
This review of housing in Chile, as an example of a developing country, gives evidence of progress
being made through both private programmes for mass housing and state regulation. However, it
also reveals environmental weaknesses. There is significant possibility for improvement through
retrofitting and new designs, using more compact shapes, more insulated building envelopes
and integrating solar equipment, all of which could be used to come close to net-zero energy
use in mass housing. However, this perspective requires extensive participation from professional
sectors, the state and private developers. This could be achieved with measures including professional support, information and assistance to the public and model homes where the recommendations have been put into practice. Such actions could achieve better social awareness and
working knowledge and skills that would lead to more sustainable homes with suitable levels of
performance for most of the country´s population.

Eco-friendly materials for the energy retrofit of existing buildings

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