Assessment of the thermal behavior of two houses built with wood or hemp-earth blocks

This work aims to assess the thermal behavior of two identical real-scale prototypes of houses with different construction materials in a hot semi-arid climate. One of the prototypes has an insulated wooden envelope and structure and the other one has a hemp-earth envelope with a reinforced concrete structure. The indoor air temperature was monitored during winter and summer campaigns. Furthermore, dynamic thermal simulations were performed, via an experimentally validated TRNSYS based model, allowing for the calculation of the houses’ heating/cooling needs. The results show that the high thermal mass of the hemp-earth house helped maintain a very stable indoor air temperature compared to the wooden house. Moreover, the latter exhibited slightly higher heating and cooling energy needs.