Hong Kong falls short on insulation awareness

This week’s cold spell has served as a reminder to many Hong Kong people that there’s a stiff price to pay for ignoring home insulation.
Despite the greatly heightened awareness of environmental preservation, people here pay scant attention to the huge amount of energy wasted during summer and winter due to the poor insulation of commercial and residential buildings.

In summer, they complain about the unbearable chill in many air-conditioned shopping malls and eateries. There’s a reason for this. Mall operators say they have no choice but to turn the air-conditioning on at full blast to avoid frequent wide swings in temperature in a poorly insulated environment.

Few local offices, hotels or homes have central heating, which is deemed unnecessary in the sub-tropical climate. But a cold spell can last several weeks, and keeping warm can be a major challenge.

Space heaters are of little use in a typical drafty Hong Kong home even if the occupiers are willing to sit in one place for as long as they can bear. Radiant heaters, oil-filled or otherwise, are rendered totally ineffective by the rapid loss of heat through non-insulated walls and windows.

The government and power companies have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertisements reminding us of the need to conserve energy and the correct ways of doing it. But, home insulation is never mentioned in those ads.

Hong Kong’s building code is widely seen to be of the highest international standard in ensuring structural safety. But environmental concern has always taken a back seat in the many revisions to enhance protection against fire and other potential hazards.

Builders in other regional cities, notably Singapore, Shanghai and Taipei, have rightfully taken great pride in showcasing their energyefficient buildings. Hong Kong
developers are competing with each other in how many units they can fit into a fixed building area, resulting in some truly unusual and utterly impractical floor plans.

Instead of reminding Hong Kong people of the benefits of energy conservation, the government needs to consider raising the requirement for building insulation.