Winter is on the door steps. Sickness levels and patient hospital visits will be sky rocketing I am sure.
I have always wondered how healthy are Libyan homes, one only needs to look at hospital records to come up with a conclusion on what makes Libyan homes although fancy and luxuries looking but: uninhabitable!.
Construction estimates of homes that are built using insulation materials, tells us that only 6% of the over all cost of a home actually will go to insulation material and labor. This means if you are building a house that is 200 s-m and the average cost will be 350 L.D. per s-m then the cost of Insulation materials would be in 350x200x6/100=4200 LD range.
That does not sound to much for a life time comfort would it?
You will be surprised. I have asked this question in my survey. The results were astonishingly poor.
-100% of people I surveyed complained from cold even though their homes are heated.
-When the same asked if they would spend the 6% on their new home, %95 refused to implement insulation. the other %5 were willing but untrusting.
-100% of surveyed people had a sick female family member in their homes (sister, wife, mother etc.) due to lack of insulation and poor diet( another day's topic I will be exploring soon).
-Majority of females suffered from a chronic asthma or a rheumatism cases if they were older in age.
-Sinus problems were present in many of the surveyed cases male and female alike due to mold presence in the building.
I have visited lavish homes in Tripoli, Gharyan, Benghazi, I find them very cold and often times big with no heating involved, most of the heating pumped in to these homes is useless. It actually works counter productive to a good healthy environment.
Heating while no insulation is a waste of money and energy. The presence of the hot air combined with water vapor penetrating from floor surface, will increase the level of water vapor in the living space, Imagine living in a Sauna, what would be the effect of that on lungs and skin eventually.
Water vapor over period of time is a good environment for mold and bacteria to grow in, causing skin rashes lung and sinus issues for many. I took in consideration the social effect, where many Libyan woman spend a great deal of time indoors at their homes and inhale that air, they are most susceptible to such diseases then man, let alone the architectural design and how environmentally friendly it is for a good quality of living for the average person living in those homes.
Hospital records show that females are twice likely to be diagnosed with upper respiratory infections then man in Libya.
So,
If you are building a home and looking for some technical assistance regarding this matter please drop me a line on my email onlibya@yahoo.com will be happy to help you on new home and retrofit as well
L.D.=Libyan Dinar
Retrofit: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/retrofit
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2 comments:
really nice blog , keep on blogging :0)
Would love to share ideas with you on building a new home. I didnt think mold could grow on cement? And do the paints there containing lead? Can they also match colors like in the usa?
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