New buildings account for a relatively small percentage of the energy used in the building sector. Retrofitting existing housing and commercial/industrial facilities is an important goal in terms of energy savings. It is also a complex endeavor, with many factors to consider, from preserving historic features to controlling costs.
The following articles and reports discuss a wide variety of materials, situations and techniques that may be encountered when undertaking an energy-efficient retrofit. As well, many case studies are provided to illustrate how to do retrofits right.
An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. You have got to love salesmen. They figure things out way before physicists, usually before engineers and certainly before greenie weenies. They found, what we should all know, that it is much more cost effective to fix the enclosure so that the actual system that you need is small and therefore does not cost much to install and does not cost much to operate. Oh, by the way, this approach also saves energy. Who knew?
