Analysis of indoor performance of houses using rammed earth walls

This paper presents results of a study to investigate the thermal performance of two existing houses that use rammed earth as the sole wall material and compare it with the performance of a house using insulated rammed earth walls. Indoor temperatures of the houses were hourly monitored and the monitored data were used to calibrate the simulation models. The results show that in summer, the uninsulated rammed earth houses have similar performance to the insulated rammed earth house; however, without using any heater, the uninsulated houses could be cooler as much as 5 degrees hence potentially would use more energy.