Feasibility Assessment of Renovating Schools in Arid Regions

Abstract

Nowadays, renovation of buildings including schools is a common practice to enhance their indoor environmental conditions and resource efficiency, and to reduce their operation cost. Construction industry always has its reservation regarding the perceived excessive renovation costs when greening a building. Such perception has been discouraged property owners from greening and certifying their existing buildings according to USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating systems. This research established an optimization model with ability of distinguishing and sorting LEED feasible credits according to their costs to achieve cost-effective LEED certifications. Nine random existing schools in Dubai were assessed to form a case study. The assessments’ results proved that less than 1% and 5% of total construction cost should be devoted to modify buildings as per LEED guideline and certify them up to Gold certificate or Platinum certificate, respectively. Attaining platinum certificate resulted in 27% and 30% water and energy consumption reductions, respectively. The estimations revealed that the projected capital spending in energy and water conservation might be returned in a maximum period of seven years with lower utility bills.