Vacant house utilization making use of the quarry ground water in Oya area

Abstract

In the Oya area of Utsunomiya City in Tochigi prefecture, because of the decline of the Oya-stone industry due to the rise of new construction materials and overseas production materials, abandoned agricultural lands and empty houses increased. However, recently in the Oya area, local government has tackled with the revitalization of the area utilizing abundant underground water of the Oya-stone quarry, which was once a facility of Oya-stone industry. For example, the place in which groundwater is accumulated in the quarry is utilized for underground lake cruise. Also, attention has been recently paid to the fact that the average water temperature of the quarry groundwater is about 7 degrees lower than that of ordinal groundwater, and business projects utilizing the quarry groundwater as a heat source for heat exchange system have recently been promoted by local government. As well as those approaches for revitalization, local government of Utsunomiya city has been tackling with reuse of empty houses.Therefore, this study explores the possibility of region revitalization utilizing regional resources in the Oya area, evaluating proposed empty house utilization that makes use of the quarry groundwater as a heat source of heat exchange system from the viewpoint of environmental burden.In this study, we investigated buildings in the Oya area, and made a building information database. Assuming a case where a empty house is renovated and utilized as a restaurant that is short in Oya area, Eight buildings with different insulation performance and air conditioning method were modeled using the building information database. We evaluated the lifecycle CO2 emissions of those building models when utilized. As a result, it is estimated that about 70% of CO2 emissions can be reduced by improving insulation performance and air conditioning system and by utilizing quarry groundwater as heat source of heat exchange system.