Thermal discomfort and adaptation strategies in Brazilian social housing

•Social housing remodeling impacts on internal thermal comfort.•Houses with greater expansion have worse percentages of facade opening.•Residents in thermal “neutrality” do not live in cooler houses.•There is a need to adopt more behavioral strategies to alleviate thermal discomfort inside the house with the increase in the useful area of the house. Living with the harmful effects of climate change is a challenge, especially in relation to the marked thermal discomfort resulting from heat waves that mainly impact economically vulnerable populations. The main objective of this study was to analyze thermal comfort in social housing and the strategies adopted by residents to overcome situations of thermal discomfort in hot and humid climates. The object study is composed of four low-income architectural types, located in the city of João Pessoa, northeast Brazil. The field research included on-site evaluations, measuring the thermal conditions inside 156 housing units and conducting semi-structured interviews. The results showed that the housing units analyzed often present internal conditions of thermal discomfort; this condition is a little more critical in homes that added extensions to their dwellings, as a result of interventions carried out by residents after the unit was occupied. One of the consequences of expanding the housing area is the reduction in the percentage of openness of the unit (openness of the enclosure/building envelope), with a major impact on thermal comfort, as approximately 50.0% of the sample presented this particularity. The worst thermal scenario was recorded in the group of single-story houses. These units, in addition to the high degree of thermal discomfort, face health problems resulting from high humidity and air temperature. The main adaptive strategies observed were using a fan and opening doors and windows. The daily average of fan use is 8.0h, resulting in an increase in energy demand.