refurbishment

As UK homes are insulated and draught proofed in an attempt to reduce wintertime heating demand they become more airtight. Any reduction in infiltration could have a detrimental effect on indoor air quality. Controllable background ventilation provided by trickle vents is one method of maintaining indoor air quality.

Nearly all retail locations use ventilation and cooling systems to ensure adequate air exchange for health reasons and indoor comfort temperatures. These systems can run for over 2,000 hours per year and we expect that average operating hours will continue to rise across Europe because of the continued trend towards longer opening hours and increased number of opening days. Shopping malls often enclose large open spaces and atria with high solar and internal gains that can drive ventilative cooling.

Effective conservation of historic buildings subject to monumental restrictions is realized through a re-use for modern functions. In fact an attended and therefore ventilated and climatized building can be maintained in thermo-hygrometric conditions suitable controlled in order to avoid the occurrence of mold. Often only the use can justify a timely and adequate maintenance. Although the sustainability of the requalification requires acceptable management costs and therefore a limitation of the energy consumptions which must be comparable with those today prescribed for new buildings.

This paper presents the effect of specific future climate changes scenarios on the resilience of the refurbishment of a 1960s office building in suburban London. A model of the building was created and simulated using IESVE to predict current energy consumption calibrated with operational energy data. Energy efficient improvements were incorporated which mainly consist of improving the insulation and air-tightness of external envelope, reducing solar and internal gain and utilising natural ventilation during the day and night for improving thermal comfort in the summer.

In the context of pressing and frequently conflicting environmental, economic and social policyobjectives, energy efficiency investment is repeatedly found to be a cost-effective and reconcilablecomponent of energy policies. High-rise residential buildings are a particularly salient issue in thisregard as their poor energy efficiency is regarded as a moderate to major problem by 18 out of 27housing ministries respondent to a Europe-wide survey.

Fan-pressurisation method was used to test the air infiltration rate of 191 dwellings in England. All tested homes were either pre or post the introduction of energy efficient retrofit measures such as cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, draught stripping and energy efficient heating system. Results show that the average air infiltration rate of the post dwellings is only marginally lower by 4% compared to the pre dwellings.

In two school buildings, concentrations of viable fungal spores in air, material and insurface samples were high indicating moisture and mould damages. Microbesincluded numerous moisture indicating species (e.g. Aspergillus versicolor,Trichoderma, Fusarium, Stachybotrys, Chaetomium, Streptomyces). After renovation,the school buildings were thoroughly cleaned. Surfaces still had abundant anddiversiform microflora. After repeated cleaning, abundance and diversity ofmicroflora diminished.

In France, most of the public project managers have collective dwellings built in the 70’s 80’s with first generation mechanical ventilation systems. These systems are not well perceived by the occupants who find them noisy, uncomfortable in winter and w

The aim of the European SSHORT (Sustainable Social Housing Refurbishment Technologies) project is to increase and promote rational and efficient use of energy in the retrofitting of social housing buildings. In this scope, one step was to evaluate with simulation studies the technical and economical interest of selected sustainable technologies on standard collective social housings in participating countries.

Thermal bridges are the typical locations for moisture and mould problems in buildings. Low surface temperatures in combination with a high humidity level in buildings can lead to severe problems and complaints by the occupants. Thermal bridges lead also to a significant increase of the energy losses in well insulated buildings. At present, thermal bridge problems still frequently occur in new buildings but especially in rehabilitation projects. In several countries so-called thermal bridge atlases already exist.