NOBODY LIKES IT HOT
When summer is at its peak, what happens to those living in informal settlements? Slums are categorised as high risk for heatwaves in India due to occupation, built environment and poor health (NDMA 2016).
A first look at what makes slum houses vulnerable to heatwaves revealed the typical tin house for what it is—a hot metal box clad incombustible materials. The temperature inside could easily reach 51⁰C, a far cry from ideal temperatures to stay comfortable.
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Beating the heat with
micro-innovations
- Shivani Raina, Architect, SEEDS
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SEEDS volunteer at a community feedback event at Masudpur slum. |
When summer is at its peak, what happens to those living in informal settlements? Slums are categorised as high risk for heatwaves in India due to occupation, built environment and poor health (NDMA 2016).
A first look at what makes slum houses vulnerable to heatwaves revealed the typical tin house for what it is—a hot metal box clad incombustible materials. The temperature inside could easily reach 51⁰C, a far cry from ideal temperatures to stay comfortable.
The story of heatwave
vulnerability, however, is not about the tin house but about the people who
live in them. The residents of Masudpur slum of Vasant Kunj in Delhi, for
example, said that summer was the most difficult time of the year. It was when their children fell ill and their
electricity bills became unaffordable. Yet when asked if they would spend money
on retrofitting their houses to make them cooler, there was visible reluctance.
When even the pinnacle of construction—Delhi’s lavish mansions—couldn’t survive
summer without air conditioners, what could they do?
Mainstream market options to
improve thermal comfort were either too expensive or too alien to ever be
adopted in settlements like Masudpur. It needed simple do-it-yourself options. To
arrive at a meaningful solution the focus had to be shifted from ‘what was
wrong to what was strong’ (Cormac Russell 2017).
The story of Masudpur’s strength
begins with a tragedy: a massive fire that razed it to the ground in 2014.
Within a couple of months, the community banded together and rebuilt a thousand
homes. This showed that the community was not only united but also was familiar
with construction. Masudpur also has unique access to segregated waste, because
the area is involved in the informal waste collection industry, i.e. the kabadi
business. This meant that Masudpur has access to a wealth of materials that
could be used to build. A fact that the residents took advantage of to make
their homes more comfortable. A cursory glance at the homes makes their
innovativeness evident. They had everything from waste insulation to plants
growing out of tin-cans.
We wondered, is it possible to
use these as the basis for effective retrofits to improve thermal comfort? Over
a few months, SEEDS helped prototype and test these retrofits and analysed
their performance both in real time and through EnergyPlus simulations. Multiple
community feedback eventsensured that the five key retrofits developed were
acceptable to the slum community.
1. Double Roof: Most of the
heatgained by these tin houses comes from the roof. Inspired by the old
billboard flex awnings built by the families, SEEDS proposed a double roof made
from the same material. Cheap and easy to install, this retrofit can bring down
the internal temperature by 5-10⁰C.
2. Skylight-&-Vent: Slum
houses usually have no usable windows which results in the house becoming dark,
stuffy and filled with smoke whenever the stove is used. The idea was simple:
cut a hole in the roof and line it with steel wire mesh to create a skylight. A
simple solar exhaust can be made using a plastic bucket and added to this
skylight. This results in the house
cooling down due to ventilation and becoming better lit.
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Drum wall made of bamboo ladders |
3. ‘Drum-Wall’: Families in
Masudpur do not have access to piped water supply; instead tankers bring water
once in ten days. As a result, the entire area is dotted with an army of water
drums. Houses that piled up the drums vertically instead of horizontally, were
considerably cooler. This is due to the thermal mass of the water in the drums.
The retrofit came in the form of a bamboo-based stand to organise these drums,
support a desert cooler and hang plant pots. Made with regular bamboo-ladders,
the ‘drum-wall’ improves thermal and visual comfort and food safety. The drum
wall also redirects and filters rainwater from the double roof for collection.
4. Flexible False Ceiling: Slum
households used stuffed cardboard under their ceiling to insulate it. Cardboard
is inflammable and tends to rot over time. Instead a retractable flexible
ceiling made of old billboard flex and bamboo was proposed. It can be opened
and closed as per the time of the day (and season) to allow the house to cool
down and heat up as and when required.
5. Tyre-Tube Thermal Break:
Another interesting innovation was cycle tyre-tube lined doorways. The tubing
softens the edge of the tin sheet preventing accidental scrapes. The same
tubing was used to line the top of the tin walls to create a break between them
and the tin roof. This rubber break would stop heat from being conducted from
the roof to the walls (breaking the thermal bridge).
Step-by-step instructions on making
and installing these retrofits were published through a manual. They were small
micro-innovations that truly helped beat the heat. For together, these five
retrofits cost just USD35 to make and could reduce internal temperature by over
10 degrees (as validated by Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology
Nagpur).
As effective as these retrofits
are, they only ensure short term resilience since they don’t yet promote
entrepreneurial action. In thelonger term, SEEDS is working with the community
to further turn these into marketable products that can build up theirfinancial
capacity.
These pilot interventions were
part of a larger Disaster and Emergencies Preparedness Programme (DEPP)
Innovation Lab initiative; an approach to identify and fund community-based
innovative solutions for disaster preparedness. For humanitarian effort in the
past has too often been characterised by a top-down approach which dismisses
the capacity of communities to help themselves and instead defines them by
their problems.
As SEEDS celebrates its 25th
year, this question of how to help families reduce their own risks continues to
be at the centre of our work. The pilot in Masudpur has emphasised one
particular lessonthat is of value. It is that ‘by recognising what is strong in
the community, restoring their faith in this strength and using it to address
what is wrong, we can make what is strong, even stronger still’ (Cormac Russell
2017).
1.Comments will be moderated by NDMA'seditorial team. 2.Comments that are abusive, personal, incendiary or irrelevant cannot be published. 3.Please write complete sentences. Do not type comments in all capital letters, or in all lower case letters, or using abbreviated text. (example: u cannot substitute for you, d is not 'the', n is not 'and'). 4.We may remove hyperlinks within comments. 5.Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name, to avoid rejection.
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