Energy Performance and Improvement Potentials for Selected Heritage Building Adaptation in England

O Akande,A Coday,D Odeleye,C Bescos

doi:10.9734/bjecc/2015/19791

Abstract

Public heritage buildings (PHBs) were evaluated with the aim to determine their operational energy performance and the objectives of identifying improvement potentials for their long term sustainable reuse. Six listed churches initially used for worship and later converted to community uses were selected and surveyed as case study buildings using purposive sampling technique. A qualitative analytical approach based on ranking the performance of the surveyed building’s energy consumption assessment compared to others within the same geographical region was adopted. Findings show that a greater number of the surveyed buildings are low-performing with their energy use being exacerbated by the combination and interplay of multiple factors such as building use pattern, efficiency of services and lighting etc. Results of the findings imply that potential and identifiable prospects for efficiency improvements and CO2 emissions reduction exists within the operation of the buildings. Recommended actions for wide-scale improvements in the form of capital replacement, retrofit/refurbishment, behavioural and improved operational management and control were suggested. The study concluded wider opportunities towards achieving energy saving such as energy management programme, building energy refurbishment scheme and use of energy efficient equipment could enhance stainable reuse of PHBs.

Highlights

Climate change has become an important driver for changing the way in which the built environment is produced and managed
Benchmarking serves as an important initiative in the drive for energy efficiency improvement and a mandatory requirement of the European Union (EU) Directive on Energy Performance of Buildings
The findings from this study suggest that significant opportunities and improvement potentials exists which could be harnessed to reduce energy consumption in the reuse of Public heritage buildings (PHBs)

Summary

Introduction

Climate change has become an important driver for changing the way in which the built environment is produced and managed This has led to increasing pressure for the existing building stock including heritage buildings to incorporate measures to reduce its CO2 emissions. In the UK, traditionally constructed buildings is defined by English Heritage as mostly all buildings constructed before 1919, in addition to a significant proportion of those built prior to 1945 with solid walls constructed of moisturepermeable materials [1,2] Sometimes these buildings are referred to as ‘historic’, ‘conservation buildings’, ‘older properties’ or ‘heritage buildings’. It is noteworthy that current refurbishment work involving existing buildings has a central part to play in meeting the UK’s long-term emissions reduction goals. This could reach beyond the minimum standards of building regulations. By adopting the best possible practice standards wherever this is technically, functionally and economically feasible, can lead to achieving a remarkable improvement in the levels of energy performance

Objectives

Results

Conclusion