Palm fiber insulation for the roof of wooden houses in jawa tondano village –minahasa, indonesia

Palm fiber insulation is a building material that can reduce the heat and noise coming into a house through its roof. Palm fiber that is widely available in Minahasa was used for the insulation. The palm fiber was made from sugar palm tree (arenga piñata sp) found in the forests around JawaTondano Village. Sugar palm trees could naturally grow in the nature and could be planted by the communit as this tree provided them with nirawater which is the main ingredients of palm-sugar products. The fermented nirawater can be distilled to produce methanol or methyl-alcohol that is the main ingredients of alcoholic drinks. Wooden house with Minahasa architecture grew more popularity for its eco-friendly feature, beautiful design and it can be assemblied (prefab), besides its construction is more cost-efficient than houses made from concrete or steel. Unfortunately, rooms of wooden houses built in high-temperature area are usually uncomfortable. The heat can flow into the rooms through roof sheathing as usually the roofs are made from tin. Too much heat may flow into the house exceeding the limit of comfort based on SNI and other standards. In big and modern buildings, constructors usually apply aluminum foil and glass-wool or rock-wool as the insulation that are bought from other areas because they are not locally-available materials. This research used two model houses for simulation with same construction. The first model was applied with palm fiber insulation under the tin roof at 5 cm gap from the lower surface of the roof. The second house was not applied with palm fiber insulation. The results of this research proved that the use of palm fiber insulation was able to hold the heat transmission from the roof. Insulation from palm fiber with 3 cm thickness successfully maintained the room temperature at 1.6⁰ C warmer at nights and 1.1⁰ C cooler at days.