Retrofitting conventional houses inexpensively to improve energy efficiency

This research is founded on the notion that energy efficiency should be a standard design characteristic of all housing, and that government action to mandate performance standards for new homes fails to recognize that most people live in existing, often inefficient dwellings. Factors contributing to the nature of existing housing, advantages of energy efficient homes and reasons for the lack of up-take of energy efficiency are investigated. The multi-scalar context for improving existing housing is presented, outlining the international movement towards sustainable development, which embraces sustainable housing and the implicit equity issues of good housing being an essential need for all people, in particular the disadvantaged. The heat transfer principles, techniques and potential benefits of conducting a retrofit to improve the energy efficiency of older conventional housing are researched and a case study retrofit carried out. Four rooms of the study house were monitored for room temperature for one year before the retrofit and then for a further year, and onsite external temperatures were also recorded continuously. Despite some site constraints, including extensive shading of the house, improvements in thermal comfort conditions in the house have been observed, together with a small overall reduction in energy consumption. Most significant were the improvements in the health of family members, especially that of the children, with lower frequencies of ill-health reported and much more rapid recovery times. These findings confirm a growing body of international research linking poor quality housing with higher rates of respiratory and cardiovascular disease and increased winter mortality levels. Traditional cost-benefit assessments of energy efficient retrofits have considered financial and, more recently, environmental factors, but need to be expanded to include the substantial, but difficult to quantify, social gains associated with enhanced quality of living environment and occupant health