It’s not surprising that it can be pretty chilly in Alaska. In South Carolina, when it gets cold, we put on a coat or we stay inside. But South Carolina’s cold and Alaska’s cold are two different monsters. It gets so cold in Alaska that the houses need to be built differently. There is more insulation and it can be different than what we use. They also need to have vapor barriers so that condensation won’t collect in the walls. (They just use a piece of plastic sheeting inside the wall.)
This is an example of the way a house might be built in Alaska. There are 6 inches of insulating foam on this one.
Some people even choose to live in houses with no plumbing because the cold weather can make pipes burst, which is expensive and a big hassle to fix. These houses are called “dry cabins.”
To learn about the housing in Alaska, we went to visit the Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks.
The PolarTREC 2012 teachers listening to the tour guide speak about insulation for houses in more remote locations.
On the tour, we learned that a lot of housing materials were shipped from the Lower 48 (i.e. what we usually think of as the main part of the U.S. – the contiguous states between Mexico and Canada). The problem with having materials shipped in is that they’re not tested at the extreme temperatures that are common in Alaska.
For example, the windows that we use in SC might be tested in temperatures as low as -10 degrees F. However, Fairbanks had temperatures in the -50’s last week. (A shopkeeper told us the temperature stayed below 0 degrees F for 5 weeks straight! Can you imagine what it would be like in SC if that happened?)
So the mission of the Cold Climate Housing Research people is to figure out what works for Alaska and other Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Or, more simply put, they make living in cold areas not only possible but actually pleasant and comfortable.
The unofficial mission of the CCHRC.