Environmental analysis of building materials of homes in slovak republic - A case study

Every human activity influences and changes the environment. Building industry together with production of food belongs to principal spheres which lead to depletion of natural resources and consuming of energy sources. Buildings participate on consuming of approximately 40% of total energy produced in highly developed countries. During the whole life cycle of buildings every individual element contributes to generation of greenhouse and acidifying gasses, waste creation, eutrophication, pollution of soil, water or air, ozone layer depletion and other negative effects. Massive amount of CO2 has its origin in energy processes which are required for heating, ventilation or cooling of buildings. However, beside operation of building, a selection of material basis influences environmental profile in enormous way. Exploitation of raw material, production of building materials and components, transportation to site, build-up, operation as well as demolition of structures require massive amounts of energy and result in change of local, as well as global climate. Life cycle assessment - the state-of-art method is used for evaluation of the potential environmental impact and quantifying of environmental performance of building materials. In this paper, parameters such as global warming potential, acidification potential, amount of primary energy and amount of used materials in building materials of 3 selected dwelling houses of contemporary Slovak build-up were evaluated using Life cycle assessment. In this case study building of similar size and constructional system were selected, described and analyzed, however building materials and components combinations varied to illustrate diverse span of results of environmental assessment. Amount of primary energy intensity reached values from 563218.0 MJ to 1360382.8 MJ in all 3 houses. Values of global warming potential were in rage from 38364.2 kg CO2eq to 76320.3 kg CO2eq. Acidification potential of building materials ranged from 214.38 kg SO2eq to 430.47 kg SO2eq. The total weight of used materials was in range from 257.7 to 451.4 tons. Copyright© 2013 IAHS.