A Decision Making Tool for the Energy Efficient Refurbishment of Residential Buildings

Abstract

Current decision making tools for the energy efficient refurbishment of residential buildings are well-developed research tools, though generally considered as being too complex for the application in building practice, especially for smaller projects. In this paper, a tool developed for architects and building professionals is presented. The tool assists in designing an energy efficient building retrofit solution. The main advantage of the tool is that it incorporates all required knowledge to design an optimal building physical and financial retrofit solution, while the architect or building engineer does not (necessarily) need to have all the competences for identifying hygrothermal problems or to be a building physics specialist.