Renovation Alternatives Research Articles

Development of a decision support tool for sustainable renovation – a case study

Purpose – Building owners are encouraged to reduce the energy consumption both in order to contribute to national energy saving goals and to reduce the costs of heating and operation of buildings. However, it is important to pursue the most optimal strategy to achieve cost-effective energy use while maintaining other values. Building managers often do not have the time or expertise to make a proper evaluation of the available options, hence there is a need for practical methodologies for evaluation of renovation alternatives. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Renobuild, a systematic approach for evaluating renovation alternatives based on sustainability criteria are under development. It aims to compare renovation alternatives from an environmental, economic and social perspective. To verify the methodology it has been used to evaluate different renovation alternatives for a multi-family apartment building in Sweden. Findings – The study showed that building managers are provided with a clear comparison between different renovation alternatives from a sustainability perspective. Using Renobuild or similar methodologies may highlight renovation measures which marginally increases the investments, but can lead to significant environmental and social benefits. Research limitations/implications – So far the methodology has only been tested on a limited number of buildings in Sweden. More buildings will need to be tested for further verification. Originality/value – Not many tools or methodologies exist which address several aspects of sustainability. Renobuild is a practical methodology that can help building owners to increase focus on sustainability.

Decision Support Model for Determining Cost-Effective Renovation Time

AbstractThe renovation of a building, instead of raising a new structure, is being scrutinized more closely at present as a sustainable alternative for reaping the benefits of improving a building’s energy performance and mitigating its physical deterioration. The extent of the benefits would be dependent on the optimal renovation time determined through the building owner’s decision-making process. Unfortunately, only a few studies have explored improvement of the decision-making process for determining an appropriate renovation time, making it difficult for building owners to conduct reliable cost-effective renovation planning. A model that estimates the optimal cost-effective renovation time of a building therefore would be a valuable tool, and the model introduced in this paper addresses this need. By applying the model to an actual renovation project as a case study, this model yielded 24 renovation alternatives for achieving a cost-effective renovation time, from which the optimal alternative was id...

Application of a Decision Support Tool in Three Renovation Projects

Building owners are encouraged to reduce energy use in order to both contribute to national energy-saving goals and reduce the costs of heating and operation. It is important to choose the most optimal renovation measures available so as to achieve cost-effective energy use while maintaining excellent indoor environments, without sacrificing architectural quality or negatively affecting the environment. Building owners and managers often have neither the time nor the expertise required to properly evaluate the available renovation options before making a final decision. Renovation measures are often calculated to repay investments in a short time, rather than taking into account life-cycle costs (LCC), despite the fact that a thoughtful, comprehensive renovation is often more cost-effective in the long run. This paper presents a systematic approach for evaluating different renovation alternatives based on a number of sustainability criteria. The methodology has been verified using three multi-family apartment buildings in Sweden. The benefit of using the proposed methodology is made clear through a comparison between the different renovation alternatives from a sustainability perspective, and will hopefully serve as encouragement to choose renovation measures which involve marginally increased investments but lead to significant environmental and social benefits in the long-term.

A Tool to Evaluate Different Renovation Alternatives with Regard to Sustainability

In Sweden and in other countries, building owners are encouraged to help reduce energy consumption, both in order to contribute to national energy saving goals and, in terms of their own interests, to reduce the costs of heating and operation of the building. However, it is important to pursue the most optimal strategy available so as to achieve cost-effective energy usage while simultaneously maintaining excellent indoor environments, without sacrificing the architectural quality or negatively affecting the environment. Building managers often do not have the time or expertise required to make a proper evaluation of the available options before making a final decision. Renovation measures are often considered in the light of repaying investments in a short time rather than taking into account life cycle costs, despite the fact that a thoughtful, comprehensive renovation is often more cost-effective in the long run. This article presents a systematic approach for evaluating different renovation alternatives based on sustainability criteria. A methodology has been developed to evaluate different renovation alternatives from environmental, economic, and social perspectives. The benefit of using the proposed methodology is that building managers who face a major renovation work are provided with a clear comparison between the different renovation options, viewed from a sustainability perspective, this may facilitate, in the long run, a culture in which renovation measures which involve marginally increased costs, but are seen to lead to significant environmental and social benefits, will be considered and carried out.

Renovation alternatives to improve energy performance of historic rural houses in the Baltic Sea region

This paper analyses renovation alternatives to improve energy performance of historic rural houses in three countries (Estonia, Finland, Sweden) in the Baltic Sea region (cold climate). The study w ...

Decision support model for semi-automated selection of renovation alternatives

The initiation of a renovation project usually involves a long process of contemplation under conditions of high uncertainty. Large organizations, that own many buildings and other facilities, can greatly benefit from a decision-support model, which can be transformed to a computerized semi-automatic tool. It will aid them develop and execute a reasonable and economical policy of rehabilitating, renovating, remodeling, or rebuilding their facilities. This paper presents a systematic four-module decision support model: (a) Preliminary survey of background conditions; (b) Evaluation and ranking of the facility's physical condition; (c) Generation of viable alternatives for rehabilitation, renovation, or reconstruction; and (d) Quantitative techno-economic comparison among the alternatives, and systematic presentation of recommendations. The paper concludes with a demonstrative example, concerning the renovation of a 25-year-old dining facility, that highlights both the practicality of the model and the benefits from utilizing it.

Emission-immission based design of combined sewer overflows and treatment plant - the dresden case study

For the city of Dresden a general master plan was set up based on investigations of the hydraulic capacity of the sewer system, the loads from combined sewer overflow and the treatment plant. The total emission from combined sewer overflows and treatment plant was the main criteria for the analysis of the efficiency of different renovation alternatives. The effect of the different alternatives on the quality of the receiving waters was investigated with a water quality model and evaluated with different approaches.

Emission-immission based design of combined sewer overflows and treatment plant — The Dresden case study

For the city of Dresden a general master plan was set up based on investigations of the hydraulic capacity of the sewer system, the loads from combined sewer overflow and the treatment plant The total emission from combined sewer overflows and treatment plant was the main criteria for the analysis of the efficiency of different renovation alternatives. The effect of the different alternatives on the quality of the receiving waters was investigated with a water quality model and evaluated with different approaches.