Ventilation strategies as a solution in rural areas houses in hot climates.

This paper shows the analysis of ventilation impact in the energy behaviour in rural areas. Considering that a large percentage of housing production is self-built in this part of Mexico, the impact of this construction activityis very important. This concerns the thermal comfort of the occupants of this type of constructions, which has also effects in the microclimate of the region.Due to the specifically local economy and the social structures, the self-built contributes in 60 % of the wholeof production of housings. Due mainly to low-quality design solutions, self-built houses present on the whole a low environmental comfort standard. The principal consideration of this study is that the ventilation as designstrategy for thermal comfort is very important to provide comfort to the occupants with hot climates in summer. Different ventilation techniques, as the simple cross-ventilation refers to conditions where a given spaceis connected by openings to both pressure and suction areas of the exterior. The movement of interior air flow this one determined by three principal factors: The size and the location of the openings (windows), his orientationwith regard to the dominant winds, the presence of natural barriers, etc. And the constructive elements near the same ones. Go on to indicate that a great part of the houses relies only on the natural ventilation to solve the conditions of interior comfort.Construction regulations do not indicate the necessary considerations to provide of natural ventilation in this type of rural houses. This study tries to obtain results that could use as reference to the local administrations to regulate the design and construction of windows and other openings to provide the interior comfort and the energy savings of the rural communities.