Improving the Energy Quality and Indoor Environmental Quality in Retrofit Buildings

Non-Technical Barriers In Retrofit Buildings

There are many non-technical barriers that have to be overcome in order to achieve energy efficient retrofitting. The first one is skepticism to deep and overall modernization of the building including modernisation of external walls, installation system and also user behaviour. Next one is the owners’ or users’ lack of knowledge about new technologies and about additional benefits coming from increasing building energy performance such as possible improvement of the thermal comfort. (SQARE, KODnZEB)

Before modernisation the building owner should thus increase the knowledge about current user and technical employees’ problems of building (European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE 2015).

The approach to modernization will be different for one-family houses, residential buildings and office buildings. In single-family buildings, in most cases, users know which measures affect the energy demand. Therefore, owners of single-family homes are more interested to make improvements.

In multifamily houses the modernization process will bring effects when tenants will be involved in the retrofitting process at its early stage. Another aspect is to increase their knowledge about energy saving measures and improvements of the thermal comfort of their flats. In office buildings, users should know how their behaviour affects energy use in building. For this purpose, appropriate training and rules should be provided.