A systematic review of retrofitting tools for residential buildings

Abstract

Retrofitting of existing buildings offers significant opportunities to reduce global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is considered as one of the main approaches to achieve sustainability in the built environment at a relatively low cost. Although there is a wide range of retrofitting technologies available, methods to identify the most cost-effective measures for each project remain a major technical challenge. Numerous projects have been developed worldwide to face this challenge with different approaches; however, many of the tools meet only local objectives, which is why they are unknown in the international arena, showing a limited transfer of knowledge. This review organizes the results under three categories: renovation assessment, financial assessment, and transfer of knowledge. The tools focusing on promoting the renovation of buildings differ in the type of user, for example, the owners, politicians, or investors. The tools dealing with financial assessment suggest different methods to evaluate and calculate the cost savings, construction costs, and return forecasts through retrofit interventions. Other tools comply with the policies that seek to register, evaluate, and characterize the existing buildings. This review provides researchers, construction professionals, and politicians with a better understanding of the advances made to effectively design building retrofitting measures and promote energy conservation as well as the assessment of the building stock for the development of policies. The review shows that many tools have the potential of joining their capabilities, which can create many opportunities for innovation in the retrofitting area.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) and innovation in the construction sector: Systematic Literature Review

“…In the study by Gonzalez-Caceres et al (2019), an extensive review of eighteen tools used for property renovation and retrofit for civil construction was carried out, grouped into three categories: renovation assessment, financial assessment and knowledge transfer. From this review, it can be concluded that development and innovation in retrofitting tools benefit a wide range of stakeholders, including researchers, organizations and even countries.…”

Toward a Fast but Reliable Energy Performance Evaluation Method for Existing Residential Building Stock

“…The refurbishment laws and regulations might vary depending on the country, but the need for Energies 2023, 16, 3930 2 of 24 an energy assessment is constant. Therefore, a key point of the retrofit plan is choosing the most suitable mathematical model for an accurate energy assessment of the existing and refurbished building state [8,9].…”

Combining CAD Modeling and Simulation of Energy Performance Data for the Retrofit of Public Buildings

“…The authors of [15] reviewed eighteen retrofit tools and classified them into three categories: retrofit assessment, financial assessment, and knowledge transfer. These tools aim to infer the best energy retrofit options based on input data.…”