Building energy use accounts for almost 50% of the total CO 2 emissions in the UK. Most of the research has focused on reducing the operational impact of buildings, however in recent years many studies have indicated the significance of embodied energy in different building types. This paper primarily focuses on illustrating the relative importance of operational and embodied energy in a flexible use light distribution warehouse. The building is chosen for the study as it is relatively easy to model and represents many distribution centres and industrial warehouses in Europe.A carbon footprinting study was carried out by conducting an inventory of the major installed materials with potentially significant carbon impact and material substitutions covering the building structure. Ecotect computer simulation program was used to determine the energy consumption for the 25 years design life of the building. This paper evaluates alternative design strategies for the envelope of the building and their effects on the whole life emissions by investigating both embodied and operational implications of changing the envelope
This paper illustrates the role of strawbale as a construction material and using strawbale load bearing construction technique in reducing the whole life impacts of housing by modelling the performance in CO 2 emissions of this method of construction. A detailed analysis has been carried out to investigate the potential of strawbale through analysis of embodied and operational CO 2 emissions in the Waddington social housing project recently completed in Lincolnshire in the UK by comparing some alternative domestic external wall constructions and the effects on the CO 2 emissions that would result.It is estimated that over fifteen tonnes of CO 2 may be stored in biotic materials of each of the semi detached houses of which around six tonnes are sequestered by straw and the remaining by wood and wood products. Our analysis indicate that the carbon lockup potential of renewable materials used in the construction of the house is capable of reducing the whole life CO 2 emissions of the house over its sixty years design life by 61% compared with the case without sequestration.The paper also discusses the practical implications of construction, detailing, maintenance, cost and selfbuild potentials of strawbale construction. The paper concludes by demonstrating the potential of loadbearing strawbale walls and 4 compares the whole life performance of strawbale construction with alternative conventional external walling systems..
This paper presents the energy and water use of 4 social houses certified to the Code for Sustainable Homes Level 5 in Gainsborough, UK. The houses were monitored over 2 years, from July 2012 to September 2014. As the houses have the same construction and energy efficiency characteristics, the study offered a unique opportunity to investigate the effects of occupant behaviour on the dwellings performance. Electricity, gas and water consumptions were measured through data logging and meter readings. Surveys and interviews were conducted throughout to gain insights into tenants understanding and interactions with low energy features in their homes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.