The Influence of Building Renovations on Indoor Comfort—A Field Test in an Apartment Building

Paula Ala-Kotila, Terttu Vainio and Jarmo Laamanen
Additional contact information
Paula Ala-Kotila: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., PO Box 1000, FI-02044 VTT Espoo, Finland
Terttu Vainio: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., PO Box 1000, FI-02044 VTT Espoo, Finland
Jarmo Laamanen: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., PO Box 1000, FI-02044 VTT Espoo, Finland

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 18, 1-18

Abstract: This article presents a field test of how deep renovation affects indoor climate quality. The studied apartment building was built in 1968 and is located in Finland, within the Nordic climate zone. The deep renovation included façade repair with extra insulation, new windows with trickle vents, new balcony glass and doors, and the installation of an exhaust air heat pump into the existing mechanical exhaust air ventilation. The indoor climate conditions and building envelope tightness were measured before and after the renovation. As a result of these energy renovation measures, the building envelope tightness improved by nearly 40% and the uncontrolled supply of air (draughts) decreased by approximately 24%. The overall energy consumption of the building decreased by 45%. Above all, the long testing period gives credibility to the study. The field test brought up the challenge of supplying an adequate amount of fresh air. This article highlights the fact that windows are part of a mechanical ventilation system if fresh air is not controlled by being led through inlet ducts. The supply air flow and volume must be ensured by correctly dimensioned valves, and therefore we stress the importance of the technical cooperation of technical designers.

Keywords: deep renovation; housing; indoor air quality; trickle vent; heat recovery system; exhaust air heat pump; supply air window; field test (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4958/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4958/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:18:p:4958-:d:417125

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().