Monitoring Indicators of the Building Envelope for the Optimisation of the Refurbishment Processes

Climate change is the greatest long-term challenge facing the human race. The building sector in Europe is responsible for an estimated 40% of the total energy consumption. Therefore, the energy efficient renovation of the existing building stock is imperative for the reduction of the building energy consumption. The overall improvement of the energy performance of the building stock is one of the main targets set by the Europe 20:20:20. Currently in many European countries the information regarding the present condition of the energy performance of the national building stock is rather diffuse and most of the data are based on assumptions. Therefore, projections for the expected future energy performance of the buildings and their energy demand are hindered and inadequate. It is possible to surpass these barriers by targeted monitoring actions. The basis could be laid by the introduction of concerted Energy Performance Indicators (EPI), which will result in reliable statistics concerning the average energy refurbishment state of different building types. This paper focuses on the Monitoring Indicators of a selected pilot housing stock in Cyprus in the framework of the IEE, EU project EPISCOPE. The Monitoring Indicators of selected houses are investigated; these include a set of energy related aspects of the building envelope, such as insulation levels of walls, windows, roofs and floors, as well as their respective refurbishment rates.