The Analysis of Small Investors’ Demands on a Thermal Insulation System for a Family House: A Case Study

Abstract

This study deals with small investors’ demands on thermal insulation systems when choosing the most suitable solution for a family house. By 2050, seventy percent of current buildings, including residential buildings, are still expected to be in operation. To reach carbon neutrality, it is necessary to reduce operational energy consumption and thus reduce the related cost of building operations and the cost of the life cycle of buildings. One solution is to adapt envelopes of buildings by proper insulation solutions. To choose an optimal thermal insulation system that will reduce energy consumption of building, it is necessary to consider the environmental cost of insulation materials in addition to the construction cost of the materials. The environmental cost of a material depends on the carbon footprint from the initial origin of the material. This study presents the results of a multi-criteria decision-making analysis, where five different contractors set the evaluation criteria for selection of the optimal thermal insulation system. In their decision-making, they involved the requirements of small investors. The most common requirements were selected: the construction cost, the construction time (represented by the total man-hours), the thermal conductivity coefficient, the diffusion resistance factor, and the reaction to fire. The confidences of the criteria were then determined with the help of the pairwise comparison method. This was followed by multi-criteria decision-making using the method of index coefficients, also known as the method of basic variant. The multi-criteria decision-making included thermal insulation systems based on polystyrene, mineral wool, thermal insulation plaster, and aerogels’ nanotechnology. As a result, it was concluded that, currently, in Slovakia, small investors emphasize the cost of material and the coefficient of thermal conductivity and they do not care as much about the carbon footprint of the material manufacturing, the importance of which is mentioned in this study.