Morocco’s housing challenge: Effect of current marketed building materials on the energy performance of residential buildings

The paper provides a research on the energy performance of current marketed building materials used for household construction in eastern Morocco. Firstly, the characterization of the thermophysical properties of commonly used building materials (cement, plaster, hollow bricks and insulation boards) was carried out using the Hot Disk method. A local building material database of eastern Morocco region was developed. It was found that the thermal conductivity of the most affordable insulation boards was of 0.03 W/mK, while the thermal conductivity of cement-based products ranged from 0.65 to 0.7 W/mK. The experimental results show that the Moroccan market of building materials cannot participate in promoting eco-construction and designing efficient lightweight building envelopes at local level. Therefore, a strong focus on the development of local low-cost insulation materials for building applications are needed. The numerical building performance analysis shows that available building practices are only efficient for passive heating. Further studied on passive cooling techniques are greatly required for designing low energy buildings in Morocco.