Exploring Indoor Climate and Comfort Effects in Refurbished Multi-family Dwellings with Improved Energy Performance

Abstract

The building stock in Sweden includes many older residential dwellings often with inadequate building envelopes and poor insulation resulting in high energy use and uncomfortable indoor climate. Improving energy performance in multi-family dwellings by refurbishment processes is the key factor to success in order to meet national and European energy goals to reduce energy use in the building sector by 50 % through 2050. How is indoor environment affected when dwellings are refurbished to become low-energy dwellings? This paper aims to explore parameters for indoor climate and comfort in refurbished dwellings transformed into low-energy dwellings from an inter-disciplinary perspective, taking into account both quantitative and qualitative aspects of indoor climate using technical measurements, a questionnaire survey, and qualitative interviews. Based on a combination of methods, the results show that the indoor climate has largely been improved and user satisfaction was high in the refurbished dwellings. Results also showed that however indoor temperatures were too high during summer, resulting in dissatisfaction from residents. Overheating can be prevented by providing information to the residents about the functionality of the heating system and by adding shade in front of the windows.

Implementing sustainable facility management

“…Various elements affect a building's energy consumption, such as the building envelope; substructure of the building; construction year; weather conditions; size; building type; efficiency of equipment; the type of heating system; and use of hot water and so on, which can be optimized (Carlsson, 2017). But the complexity of these different systems as well as the rapid development of ICT, such as Building Information Models (BIM) and smart house technology make it difficult for FM practitioners to define and choose comprehensive solutions (Balaras et al, 2007;Liu and Thoresson, 2013;Risholt and Berker, 2013). To be implemented, these technologies require knowledge, understanding and appropriation, which need to be continually updated (Thomsen et al, 2013;Støre-Valen et al, 2014;Moum et al, 2017).…”

Energy Use and Perceived Indoor Environment in a Swedish Multifamily Building before and after Major Renovation

“…A standardized on-site questionnaire was used to study the perception of the indoor environment before and after the renovation. The questionnaire was developed by the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Örebro University Hospital in Sweden in 1988 [30] and has since been used in several studies of indoor environment in both new, old and renovated buildings [7,25,[31][32][33]. The questionnaire is available for several types of buildings, both residential, public, and office buildings.…”

Managing Sustainability Aspects in Renovation Processes: Interview Study and Outline of a Process Model

“…In contrast to production of new buildings, far-reaching renovation focusing on reducing energy demand along with enhanced indoor environment are still seen mainly as pilot cases; according to Liu and Thoresson (2013) [17], these kinds of projects are performed on a small scale in Sweden. Barriers to implementation of renovation processes towards more sustainable buildings have been investigated for example by Thuvander et al, 2012 [12], Cattano et al, 2013 [18], and Häkkinen and Belloni (2011) [19].…”