Environmental Assessment of a Low-Energy House

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. The input data related to embodiedenergy are based on information originating from selected recent works on life cycle analysis.The paper discusses the limits of the building envelope improvements in terms of thermalinsulation thickness and the sense of the building environmental assessment.