Investigating the Opportunities to Improve the Thermal Performance of a Case Study Building in London

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the opportunities of improving thermal performance by focusing on envelope effects of a building located in London. Firstly, through a broad literature review of the previous conducted case studies, an investigation of all the building envelope aspects and parameters influencing the thermal performance of the building was conducted to provide critical information of thermal performance of the envelope components within the UK buildings. Then, onsite measurements were carried out to obtain the building's base case heating load using the standard CIBSE GUIDE A 2017 heat load calculation methodology. Neglecting thermal bridging in the heating calculation showed 8% reduction in the building's total heating load. Also, 17% reduction in energy consumption and CO2 emissions was achieved by applying polyurethane-foam and polystyrene-boards as cavity and external wall insulations, respectively. Moreover, the effect of applying both insulation in the energy consumption, CO2 emissions, cost and payback period analysis was analysed.