Evaluation of the impact of internal partitions on energy conservation for residential buildings in Serbia

Abstract

In Serbia, around 50% of energy is used in built environment and most of it for 6-month heating in residential buildings. Because of actual international efforts to protect environment, energy conservation in heating in residential buildings is an issue of permanent research interest. In this paper, we tried to determine how type of partitions inside a residential building influences energy consumption and demand for houses in cold climate and consequently energy conservation. For a typical house in Serbia, by using software HTB2, it was evaluated how its heating depends on six applied types of partitions. It was found that (1) the house with glass-wool partitions would have the minimum yearly heat consumption, (2) the house with masonry partitions would require heaters of minimum size, (3) the house with siporex partitions would require the lowest investment in partitions and heaters, and (4) the house with glass-wool partitions would yield the highest net savings during the life cycle of the house.