residential buildings

Since 2006, the Effinergie certification has been a major market driver in France for energy efficiency initiatives in all building types, new and renovated. It has been a laboratory for the 2012 energy regulation in France, for instance, for the overall primary energy minimum requirements or for the mandatory justification of an envelope airtightness level. In the same vein, the Effinergie+ and Bepos labels operational since 2012 and 2013 experiment new requirements and methods, which will serve for the 2020 revision of the energy regulation.

Because of the relative complexity of the French method for calculating the energy performance of new buildings, the selection of input data for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems can be a challenge without any guidance.

Building air leakage rate is taken into account in energy calculations, but mainly with default tabulated values. With tabulated values, there is an option to use measured values instead of more conservative tabulated values. Regarding compliance, usually there is no requirement to measure and verify the building air leakage rate (except in France).

Airtightness performance of the building has a significant weight in the Belgian EPB-calculation and the number of pressurisation tests in new buildings is strongly increasing. To face the potential lack of tester’s skills and to ensure a reliable value, a quality framework has been achieved according to which testers have to pass an exam and could be controlled. This factsheet describes the relevant quality framework and its context.

AMA (General material and workmanship specifications) has been used in Sweden for more than sixty years. The different parts of AMA are used as reference documents in technical specifications. Between 90 and 95% of all building projects in Sweden refer to AMA in the contract documents.

Since 2006, there has been a significant reward in the French energy regulations for good airtightness, which has been combined with a minimum requirement for residential buildings in the 2012 version of the regulation. Airtightness test results show that the average building airtightness performance has improved by nearly 50% in single- and multi-family buildings since 2006 and now stabilises below the minimum requirements around q50 = 2.8 m³/h per m² of envelope area, excluding lowest floor (or about n50 = 1.8 h^-1).

Regulatory compliance checks on samples of residential ventilation systems are operational in France. The analysis of their results shows a significant rate of non-compliance with the ventilation regulation (rate on the order of 50%).

Fact sheet #03 describes a voluntary scheme defining the data to be announced in the product documentation. The scheme has been launched in 2012 by Uniclima, the French association of ventilation product manufacturers. It ensures that product characteristics are provided under a harmonised form (same physical quantity, unit and assessment method), and facilitates access to relevant input data for the energy performance calculation of a building. The scheme contributes to enhancing the compliance of published data.

Fact sheet #01 describes how a quality management scheme has been introduced in the French energy regulation to encourage professionals to question their current practice and find effective solutions to improve building airtightness. The scheme allows successful applicants (mostly builders of single-family dwellings) to justify for a given airtightness level without systematic third-party testing. The fact sheet details the basic principles of the approach as well as the requirements applicants have to fulfil.

It is estimated that people spend 60-90% of their life in indoor environments. Therefore, it is obvious that indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort are of highly importance for the health and wellbeing of the population. Consequently, buildings should be designed to ensure proper indoor conditions. Furthermore, the need to mitigate climate change and to reduce energy import dependency, provides additional challenges for the design and operation of buildings and requires a dramatic reduction in their energy consumption and emissions.