Life-Cycle Optimised Housing

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Life-cycle optimised housing

Jyri Nieminen VTT jyri.nieminen@vtt.fi, http://www.vtt.fi/ Kimmo Lylykangas Helsinki University of Technology kimmo.lylykangas@hut.fi, http://www.hut.fi/ KEYWORDS: life-cycle, eco-efficiency, energy efficiency, buildings.

SUMMARY: Performance approach aims at management of a product's life cycle properties, and benefit for the users. In ecoefficient construction, performance is an output value achieved with certain input by environmental impacts and life cycle costs. Market driven life-cycle optimised construction has to fulfil three major requirements. A performance that fulfils the user requirements for extended periods should be the output from the design and construction process. Low environmental pressure and low life cycle costs are the input needed to fulfil the requirements. As decision-making is often based on first costs, the building's technical solutions need to be costeffective. Based on performance requirements set for indoor climate, comfort and adaptability to user's varying needs on one hand and requirements on first costs, life cycle costs and environmental impacts on the other, a model house introducing a new wooden structural system was designed. The architectural challenge of the model house comes from the high adaptability of interior and exterior spaces including a possibility to expand the house according to future needs . The analysis of the model house shows 60% reduction of heating energy consumption and 30% reduction of life cycle costs compared to a typical house. According to call for tenders, the investment costs are on the level of a typical house . The building introduces a new open wood-framed building system Nordic Platform allowing for shorter delivery cycle than with typical site-construction. The system aims at site-construction from pre-fabricated products for building envelope. The open construction system with published structural details is free to be copied by other network actors. As the basic principle of the construction process is to utilise local enterprise networks, resources and labour, education for both producers of building products and site-workers is needed. Special features of the system are 250 mm single-frame wooden structure with integrated thermal break for exterior walls and trussed construction for internal floors. The house has a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery. Two heating systems are introduced: floor heating and ventilation heating system. The house is also designed for regional construction and distributed energy supply. Trussed floors include a possibility for easy and flexible installation and maintenance of building services systems.

1. Introduction
Sustainable construction strives to minimize the consumption of energy and resources for all phases of the life cycle of buildings. This includes the whole process from land use strategies, design issues and decision making in planning and construction to use, renovation and disposal and demolition of buildings. The concept of ecoefficient construction is well known, but the concept of network operations based new regional building is still under-developed. As the models for both eco-efficient buildings and neighbourhoods and operations models are implemented, the technology and process develop in the company networks. The model house was designed according to the desired performance characteristics describing the user requirements and environmental targets of the house. VTT's requirement's management tool EcoProp (2003) was used in setting the requirements. Requirements for the technical design were derived from the performance requirements: The house is adaptable with regard to both size and floor plan The wooden house serves for short delivery cycle at site and simple thermal insulation system. The load-bearing wooden frame is single-framed allowing for high levels of insulation. Comfort is taken into account in all dimensioning of structures. The house is energy-efficient. The heating energy demand of the house is less than 50% compared to a house according to national building code of 2003, and less than 35% compared to typical buildings before 2003. Heating energy consumption can be decreased further by building service systems. Appliances and heating and ventilation equipments are energy labelled. The house has a long-service life. The durability of the wooden envelope structures is improved by environmentally friendly wood preservatives. The colouring of the house is based on tinctures traditionally used in wooden houses. The house has a tilted roof for facade protection. The house has a good and healthy indoor climate. The adaptability of the house is taken into account in the design of building services. The materials and solutions support good and healthy indoor environment.

2. Model house design


2.1 Architecture
The designed housing areas are quite different in nature. This was also anticipated in the design of the model house. The house should fit for both rural areas and dense town areas. A full adaptability is a difficult task to achieve for a common model house design. The solution was to allow different floor plans within the structural modules, and to make it possible to build different apartment sizes from 73 to 195 m2 with the same basic foot print of the house. As the house has either 1 or 1 story the upper floor can be finished later-on depending on the needs of the family, Figure 1. Building services systems are designed for the maximum size of the building. Routing of building service's systems can be placed in the internal floor. The bathroom, sauna and room for technical equipment is a prefabricated module. Kitchen is directly connected to the module, and upper floor bathroom locates directly above the module. This enables short routing of ductwork, electricity and water and sewage systems. Design features of the model house given in Table 1. Special features of the building envelope systems are 250 mm single-frame wooden structure with integrated thermal break for exterior walls and trussed construction for internal floors, Figure 2. The single frame system allows for 25 cm insulation between the frames, and an exterior insulation to improve the insulation level. The house has a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery. Two heating systems are introduced: floor heating and ventilation heating system based on ground heat pumps. The house is also designed for regional construction and distributed energy supply. Trussed internal floors include a possibility for easy and flexible installation and maintenance of building services systems. The building introduces a new application of open wood-framed building system Nordic Platform allowing for shorter delivery cycle than with typical site-construction. The system aims at site-construction from pre-fabricated products for building envelope. The open construction

system with published structural details is free to be copied by other network actors. The Nordic Platform system will be the first nationally standardized frame system.

FIG. 1. Floor plans of the two-storey model house. All installations using water are inside the wet modules. Routing of ventilation duct work locates in the internal floor or ceiling of the first floor. Table 1. Design Features of the model house. A. Good indoor climate Indoor air classification S1 or S2 [1] Emission Classification of Surface Materials M1 Purity Classification of Construction Work P1 B. Ventilation Air flows The lowest air flow in winter = 0,33 dm/s/m The largest air flow in summer = 1,5 dm/s/m Air tightness of ductwork Air tightness rate at 50 Pa < 0,04 dm/s/m Heat recovery Yearly efficiency of heat recovery from exhaust air 60 % Electrical efficiency Specific power of ventilation system < 1,5 W/(dm/s) Noise level of ventilation equipment Bed rooms and living room < 22 dB(A), other < 25 dB(A) C. Thermal insulation Exterior wall U < 0,15 W/m2K Floor U < 0,14 W/m2K (crawl space foundation) Roof U < 0,12 W/m2K Window U < 0,9 W/m2K, Window energy classification Class A [2] Door U < 0,7 W/m2K [1] Classification of Indoor climate (2000) [2] Window energy classification

FIG 2. Structures of the building envelope, Nieminen et al. 2008.

2.2 Energy efficiency


The houses are designed so that the larger is the house the less energy by m2 it consumes. The maximum heating energy demand can vary between 70 - 50 kWh/m 2, which includes energy produced for heating and hot water, and fire wood used in the fire places, Table 2. Company-built houses are required to have lower consumption than houses built by home builders. The peak auxiliary heating energy power is restricted to 35 W/m 2. Table 2. Energy performance of the model house (150 m2). Heating energy consumption with ground source heat pump system. Consumption, kWh/m Heating energy HVAC electricity Household Total Existing buildings 140 - 170 20 - 30 30 - 40 190 - 240 Model house 25 - 30 10 - 20 25 - 35 60 - 85

3. Distributed energy systems


Two case studies were carried out, Tuusniemi and Tampere. In the municipality of Tuusniemi (3000 inhabitants), a new housing area was designed. A possibility to join a distributed heating energy system was analysed. The system based on the following principles: The municipality offers the connection to the network Builders have a possibility to join the network with their own heating systems A service provider would be responsible on the network and heat generation. Three alternatives were considered for a distributed heating energy network: High temperature biomass plant (T = 80/43 oC) using local energy sources.

Centralized ground heat distribution system (T = 50/40 oC) with separate hot water system Distributed low temperature ground heat system (T = 2/-1 oC) with individual heat pumps.

A cost analysis showed that the low temperature distributed ground heat system (Figure 3) is cost efficient for both the municipality with regard the construction costs and the builders with regard the life-cycle costs. The investment cost for the ground collector systems is roughly 35 - 45 /floor-m 2 of houses. The costs are dependent on the plot ratio of the area. As the plot ratio for the Tuusniemi housing area is extremely low, the costs for a total network is high. If the network can be divided into sub networks, the costs will be reduced down to 25 - 35 /floor-m2. The ground system uses water soluble and environmentally safe heat carrier.

FIG. 3. The suggested ground heat system in Tuusniemi. The ground pipe work for heat collection depends on ground conditions. Horizontal pipe work is used in soil with clay, and heat wells in rock. In Tampere, a new housing area of 13500 inhabitants is under development. The major part of the area will be covered by co-generated heat and power produced with natural gas, peat and biomass as primary energy sources. Distributed heat pump systems can be utilized in areas where district heat is not economical. The possibilities are to use lake water or heat wells as ground heat sources. The system costs range from 7 to 9 /floor-m2 (cost level 2004) for the heat collector systems only, as an average cost level for distribution network for district heating varies roughly between 10 and 15 /floor-m2. The importance of the efficiency of the design area was also analysed. The price of the supplied heat was calculated using the following parameters: Electricity price Investment costs (heaters, heat pumps, netweork) Interest rate, service life Maintenance and running costs, replacements Heating equipment in houses Density of the area o Rural density o Old low density housing areas o Typical new housing areas o Low and dense housing areas Single family houses use direct electric or accumulating electrical heating system. During the last few years heat pump heating has gained market share in single-family houses heating systems. Figure 4 shows the dependence of the life-cycle cost of supplied heat on the price electricity in different types of housing areas. In life-cycle

perspective, the ground heat network is cost-efficient in dense housing areas, whereas the direct electric heating is more cost-efficient in low density areas and present electricity prices.
Life-cycle cost of heating energy
0,18 Life-cycle costof heating energy [ /kWh] 0,16 0,14 0,12 0,1 0,08 0,06 0,04 0,02 0 0,06 T1 Rural density T2 housing areas Old T3 housing areas New Low T4 and dense areas Direct electric heating Suora shklmmitys

0,07

0,08

0,09

0,1

0,11

0,12

0,13

0,14

0,15

0,16

Estimated price of electricity [ /kWh]

FIG. 4. Life-cycle cost of heating energy according to different types of housing areas.

It is clear that improving energy-efficiency of a building requires more effort in design of the building, and also in construction of the building envelope. If the energy-efficiency is improved by simple, low-cost, and smallsized measures, it brings along important consequences. Power demand for heating and electrical energy, service power demand, basic rates, heat exchangers and heating equipment can be reduced. In dense housing areas a group of buildings can use, e.g., the same ground heat pump system. The need for renovation of a house comes from two sources: reduced technical condition of the building components, and the spaces and appearance of the house becoming old-fashioned. The need and extend for such renovation measures depends largely on the target setting in the early design phase. The need for future renovations can be reduced by taking the future needs into account in the design. Therefore it is important that the builder and the design team work together to find out the needs of the first user of the house, and try to settle these needs with a view to the future performance of the house. Systems serving as a platform for decisionmaking have been developed in a number of international frameworks. An example of such a system is described in the Table 3. Table 3. VTT ProP Property classification A CONFORMITY B PERFORMANCE C COST AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROPERTIES C1 Life-cycle costs C2 Environmental pressure D PROCESS

A1 Location A2 Services

B1 Indoor conditions B2 Service life B3 Adaptability B4 Safety B5 Comfort B6 Accessibility B7 Usability


= conformity + performance environmental pressure

D1 Briefing/Programming D2 Procurement D3 Commissioning D4 Operation

Ecoefficiency

Cost efficiency

conformity + performance life cycle costs

The direct benefits of eco-efficiency are given in the Table 4. For a housing provider eco-efficiency serves for improved return and running costs. In general the importance of eco-efficiency can be given as: Acquisition costs: 0 ... 5% higher than with typical construction Life-cycle costs: 10 ... 30% lower than with typical construction Life-cycle profit: 30 ... 50% better than with typical construction After market value: 10 ... 30% better compared to typical construction.

Table 4. The direct benefits of eco-efficiency for a home builder, Nieminen et al. (2008). Location:Tuusniemi Reference period 20 years Real interest rate: 2% Cost properties Acquisition cost Aqi Financing cost: loan for 60% of acquisition cost/15 years Maintenance cost (actions defined in house manual) Operating cost - Heating energy - Electrical energy - Other operating cost - Adaptability cost (changes in floor plan) - Risk cost (damages that can not be anticipated) - Development cost (for adaptability) Life-cycle cost LCC Life-cycle income LCI Life-cycle economy LCE = LCI - LCC Resale value RV Life-cycle profit LCP = (LCE + RV)/(Aq x t) Typical house 150 m2 2 /m 1 370 140 100 110 40 80 35 40 50 1 965 2 040 +75 1 000 3,9 %/a Eco-efficient house 150 m2 2 /m 1 405 145 90 35 35 40 20 30 20 1 765 2 040 +275 1 200 5,2 %/a

4. Market situation
VTT's market study on potential home builders that are willing to build an energy-efficient home showed that the demand does not meet the supply. Roughly 50% of the builders considered building energy-efficiently, but only 10% built an energy efficient home, Mikkola & Riihimki (2003). The main reason for building typical was the lack of appealing possibilities. However, business opportunities for energy efficient single-family houses do exist. The demand for energyefficient housing is increasing. There are forerunning companies that have already opened the market for passive houses. Energy directive and energy labelling of houses also tend to change the market situation The segments of the Finnish housing market have not been defined. It has been anticipated that the demand for eco-efficient housing grows from academic families with children, but there is no clear evidence on that. It is also quite uncertain that market orientation based on market segments would change the processes and market situation to enable rapid and wide market penetration. The development of the both case housing area is carried out as a network operation. In Tuusniemi, the wide publicity the project gained immediately increased interest on the housing area. Before any single building was erected, the population of the municipality turned growing, thus helping the municipality with its main problem of depopulation. The project also supported local building products' industry. Manufacturing of new timber products and low-energy windows grew from the development carried out. If these are weak signals of increased interest on eco-efficient housing, the concept itself can be expected to benefit from the growing interest.

5. Conclusions
In the last 15 - 20 years, a number of projects have been carried out aiming at energy-efficient and environmentally friendly housing. There is a wide range of technologies and concepts that have been tested in monitoring projects. The technological possibilities to reduce a building's energy consumption have been available for a long time. Also, the costs of energy efficiency have been proved to be almost negligible. Despite of the existing vast amount of information, no clear market change has happened. The major demand for housing and primary market area for eco-efficient construction is single-family housing. The basic assumption is that in future only eco-efficient solutions will be acceptable in the aftermarket. This will bring improvements to the value thinking in construction through the following operational impacts: Market conditions of products and services improve through better user/owner requirement management Improvement in life-cycle properties of new single-family houses are qualified according to commonly accepted criteria (e.g., energy classification, labelling procedures). Life-cycle costs, investment costs and value thinking are evenly important factors in decision making.

Sustainable development and development of knowledge society will affect on the production, supply chains and delivery modes of buildings, as well as in-use services. Information services offer a platform for more accurate user (owner) participation, and thus also a media for verification of user benefits. Internet is already the primary information source in pre-construction phase. Performance based building is placing user and owner needs in the focus. The methodology provides practical means for assessing benefits of new technologies. Performance approach requires an integrated and transparent procurement process and is therefore closely connected to the development of knowledge society. The process of change can be supported by the following measures: Increased independent and impartial information on sustainable building: Overcoming contradicting information produced by companies who have their own interest in the market. Objective information for builders: Objective, builder oriented information on user benefits and cost effects of eco-efficiency. Social acceptance: Evaluation of demand on eco-efficient housing and living and social acceptance of model buildings. New eco-efficient housing concepts (e.g., model houses): Open concepts especially for SME's to be utilised in network operation. New procurement procedures: Integrated design process, performance based tendering, commissioning.

References
Classification of Indoor Climate 2000. Finnish Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (FiSIAQ), Window energy classification. http://www.motiva.fi/ EcoProP - Requirements Management, 2003. http://cic.vtt.fi/eco/ecoprop/english/EcoProp_brochure.pdf Nieminen, J. et al. 2008. Models of eco-efficient housing and housing areas. VTT Research Notes. (to be published 2008) Mikkola, K., Riihimki, M. 2002. The readiness of one-family house constructors to environmentally friendly construction methods. (in Finnish). VTT Research Notes. Imperial College (1999). Natural Resins as a Potential Wood Processing Agent. EU FAIR research program 1999. The life cycle analysis by Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, UK..

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