Energy Retrofits of Residential Buildings - impact on architectural quality & occupants' comfort
Authors: Publication Year: 2012

In order to be successful on the market, energy-saving measures for existing buildings need to be promoted with arguments that are directly relevant to the users. Initial marketing for energy retrofitting has been based on monetary profits from future energy savings. However, for most households in Europe, energy bills for the home account for only 3-4 percent of disposable income, hence are not a major concern. As a result of inappropriate promotion of energy savings for existing buildings, less than 1 percent of over 300.000 projects certified by BREEAM are refurbishments. Apparently, the promotion of energy retrofitting needs to be based on different grounds. It has been shown that people are particularly attracted to the idea of increasing the comfort and appearance of their homes, rather than carbon savings or long-term monetary profits. Therefore, the goal in this paper was to analyze the potential of linking energy-efficiency to an increase in housing quality.Once this relation is precisely defined, people will have a clear idea about the benefits of energy retrofits of their homes, thus be more motivated to make the investments.

Additional Info

  • Publication Year: 2012
  • Publication Place: Trondheim, Norway
  • Publisher: NTNU
  • Type: MSc Thesis

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