Energy Retrofit Strategies for Residential Building Envelopes: An Italian Case Study of an Early-50s Building

Luca Evangelisti, Claudia Guattari and Paola Gori
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Luca Evangelisti: Department of Engineering, University of Roma TRE, via Vito Volterra 62, Rome 00146, Italy
Claudia Guattari: Department of Engineering, University of Roma TRE, via Vito Volterra 62, Rome 00146, Italy
Paola Gori: Department of Engineering, University of Roma TRE, via Vito Volterra 62, Rome 00146, Italy

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 8, 1-16

Abstract: During the last few years, the issues of energy efficiency and energy saving have dominated the buildings research field. New constructions are based on efficient design and, because of this, the real challenge is to retrofit existing buildings. Italian standards impose thermal transmittance limits for opaque and transparent surfaces, according to the climatic area. In order to understand buildings’ energy behavior, an accurate analysis, carried out by employing advanced calculation codes and instrumental diagnosis—provided by the use of heat flow meter, surface temperature probes and thermal imaging camera—is needed. In this paper, a structure built in the 50 s has been analyzed, by means of a measurement campaign, to investigate the building’s characteristics and its vulnerability. Finally, some retrofit hypotheses have been evaluated by means of a well-known dynamic code. All investments have to be analyzed under a financial point of view, considering materials and installation costs. For this reason, the payback time has been calculated in order to understand how quickly the energy upgrading can be repaid.

Keywords: buildings energy analysis; existing building retrofit; dynamic building simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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