Gorse, C; Sutton, R; Johnston, D and Miles-Shenton, D (2011) Heat loss through the building fabric: Low carbon construction practice. In: Egbu, C and Lou, E C W (eds.) Proceedings of 27th Annual ARCOM Conference, 5-7 September 2011, Bristol, UK.
Abstract
For domestic buildings to meet current definitions of zero carbon the building fabric and services must achieve 70% reduction in energy use, taking the carbon emissions down to less than 7 Kg CO2/m2. However, there is a significant obstacle to such endeavours. The limited information on the thermal performance of buildings means that the designs are theoretical. Very few models have been tested against the as-built product and where tests have taken place the cyclical process of research and development is taking time to feed back into the design and construction processes. The gaps in our knowledge of building physics are considerable, designs are not robust and buildings are falling short of their expectations. An intensive study of 18 houses was undertaken to examine the design and onsite assembly, comparisons were made between the predicted energy performance and that achieved once the design was built. The heat losses were, on average over 40% worse than predicted. The forensic analysis of the design and construction process revealed that buildings do not perform as designed due to missing or incomplete information, incorrect detailing, ad-hoc adjustments on site, incorrect assembly of materials, poor workmanship and failure to commission buildings and their services properly. From the research, a list of problems has been produced with the aim of avoiding such defects in the future.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction practice; low carbon construction |
| Index terms: | carbon emission, energy performance, thermal performance, onsite, workmanship, domestic building, research and development, low-carbon construction, design and construction, energy use |
| Subjects: | sustainability and energy, construction type, building construction, contractual condition, climate science, contractual arrangements, research management, energy systems |
| Topics: | Procurement, Contract Administration, Construction Technology, Sustainability, Engineering Principles, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here