Statistical method to identify robust building renovation choices for environmental and economic performance
Journal article, 2020

Building renovation is urgently required to decrease the energy consumption of the existing building stock and reduce greenhouse gas emissions coming from the building sector. Selecting an appropriate renovation strategy is challenging due to the long building service life and consequent uncertainties. In this paper, we propose a new framework for the robust assessment of renovation strategies in terms of environmental and economic performance of the building's life cycle. First, we identify the possible renovation strategies and define the probability distributions for 74 uncertain parameters. Second, we create an integrated workflow for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost analysis (LCC) and make use of Sobol’ indices to identify a prioritization strategy for the renovation. Finally, the selected renovation scenario is assessed by metamodeling techniques to calculate its robustness. The results of three case studies of residential buildings from different construction periods show that the priority in renovation should be given to the heating system replacement, which is followed by the exterior wall insulation and windows. This result is not in agreement with common renovation practices and this discrepancy is discussed at the end of the paper.

Life cycle assessment

Life cycle cost

Uncertainty quantification

Building renovation

Author

Alina Galimshina

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH)

Maliki Moustapha

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH)

Alexander Hollberg

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Building Technology

Pierryves Padey

Haute Ecole Specialisee de Suisse occidentale

Sébastien Lasvaux

Haute Ecole Specialisee de Suisse occidentale

Bruno Sudret

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH)

Guillaume Habert

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH)

Building and Environment

0360-1323 (ISSN)

Vol. 183 107143

Subject Categories

Construction Management

Other Environmental Engineering

Environmental Analysis and Construction Information Technology

DOI

10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.107143

More information

Latest update

9/14/2020