An Evaluation of Thermal Comfort in Typical Modern Low-Income Housing in Malaysia PDF

Malaysia is facing a serious housing shortage in urban areas. To meet the demand, particularly for low-income families, the government and private corporations have launched massive building programs. Most of the housing being built is totally unsuitable for a hot and humid climate and, consequently, the houses are thermally uncomfortable most of the time. Unlike the modern houses currently being built, traditional Malay houses are designed to suit the climate and hence provide comfortable living conditions.

A study conducted by the authors was an important prototype, comparing a traditionally built house and a typical modern “modular” low-income house built in Sarawak, East Malaysia. Thermal comfort parameters were measured in both houses. The data were evaluated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code and the comfort levels were assessed using the Corrected Effective Temperature (CET) Iindex method.

The provisional research confirmed that the traditionally built Malay house provided good levels of thermal comfort while the modern “modular” house did not. The work identified the critical need for some form of permanent ventilation to be provided in the modular house in order to improve its thermal comfort provision.