In order to reduce the energy consumptions, it is urgent to be focused on existing buildings.The answer is how to determine priorities of interventions on a building to be renovated. The traditional method consists in carrying out a great number of tests and quantifying profits obtained with each solution or combinations of solutions.

This paper describes the production of the Customer Advising Tool (CAT), a piece of software to help assess the potential for reducing the cooling demand of Office buildings, as required by Article 9 of the EPBD. It is a practical tool aimed at use by building owners, inspectors and auditors as part of the Inspection and Audit process. The tool was developed by the authors as part of the IEE AUDITAC project.

Regulatory devices for the energy efficiency of buildings currently in use, including the new EU “Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings” [1] and especially the methods currently proposed in the various member states to determine and judge the e

A systematic method for assessing and improving indoor environment quality (IEQ) isdeveloped for existing and occupied office buildings. The method begins with an occupantsatisfaction survey that is directed to everyone working in a building. The structure of thequestions follows a pattern that offers valuable information of the technical reasons leading todissatisfaction.

Both on European and national scale, standards are now being drawn to extend to summer airconditioning the evaluation of energy requirement in building-plant systems. To this aimdifferent simplified methods have been taken into account, anyway all similar to theutilization factor method already used for the winter season.The results obtained by the application of these methods in the case of typical buildings aretherefore compared here with those from a dynamic simulation of building-plant system bymeans of comprehensive computer programs like Energy-Plus.

Specialist researchers, property owners, builders and building managers have togetherdeveloped a quality assurance (QA) management scheme that considers indoor environmentand energy use. The primary objective of quality assurance is to work towards continuingimprovements and to encourage those concerned to perform measures that otherwise wouldnot have been considered, and to ensure that energy improvements are not introduced at theexpense of indoor environment conditions.

In order to improve life quality into buildings, the present paper proposes a certification model for indoor total comfort.The first part of the paper concerns energy certification of buildings, with attention to energy efficiency, renewable sources, heating and air-conditioning. In the second part of the paper certificate concept is extended to factors which contribute to ideal requirements into buildings: acoustics and lighting, use of water, safety and technology are studied according to standards.

The large advancement in the market of building materials and of HVAC systems leads to a wide variety of technical solutions that can be employed to build an efficient low energy commercial building.The comparison between different combinations of parameters representing the main elements of the envelope, lighting management and solar blinds, office automation, plug consumptions and efficiency of the HVAC system is always of special interest to building owners and HVAC design engineers; however, such a study is rarely totally accomplished because of the time required.The paper describes a f

Already 20 years ago, Gro Harlem Brundlandt stated «I believe the time has come for higher expectations, […] for an increased political will to address our common future» ([1], p. 13). Indeed reading the newspapers one could get the notion that finally po

The paper shows the life cycle of a low-energy detached house from the viewpoint of CO2-emissions. It compares the energy use in the course of its service life in relation to energyinput necessary for its assembly and manufacturing of single building products. The servicelife is described using both the standardized calculation methods for energy balance ofbuildings and the open software tools, e.g. esp-r, as well.