LT-Ready: Affordable renovation concepts that enable low-temperature heating and provided thermal comfort

LT-Ready: Affordable renovation concepts that enable low-temperature heating and provided thermal comfort

Rutten, Saskia (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)

Konstantinou, T. (mentor)
van den Ham, E.R. (mentor)
Wahi, P. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Building Technology

LT-Ready

2021-06-30

The Dutch building stock has to switch to alternative energy-efficient heat sources, such as district heating or heat pumps, which will provide a lower supply temperature for the heating system in dwellings. Yet, the consensus is that dwellings need to be intensively renovated, to provide thermal comfort with low-temperature heating. However, it can be argued that a more affordable renovation with less renovation measures can also provide the same level of thermal comfort as the original situation. To this day, it is unknown what the minimal combination of renovation measures could be. Thus, this research aimed to design combinations of renovation measures, which are both affordable, and are able to provide thermal comfort in Dutch terraced houses. These renovation concepts are referred to as LT-Ready concepts. Hence, the main research question answered in this thesis is: “What combination of renovation measures for residential buildings is affordable and provides thermal comfort when using a lower supply temperature for heating?” First, a literature study is conducted. It investigated the available renovation budget of house owners, as well as thermal comfort, including current guidelines and local comfort aspects. Also, possible renovation measures to enable low-temperature heating were researched. Second, to select the most cost-effective renovation measures, a cost analysis was performed. Using this, renovation concepts were developed and tested with dynamic simulation software. Here, the thermal and energy performance was simulated with an adaption of the ATG-method for dwellings. The renovation concepts included the placement of a ventilation system and additional renovation measures. Results provided a variety of renovation concepts that were LT-Ready within a budget of €10,000. Different scenarios were developed with building or budget limitations, after which the best LT-Ready option was selected. In general, it was concluded that demand-driven exhaust ventilation (C2) or balanced ventilation with heat recovery (D1) is preferable. Wall insulation and replacing windows also showed a large effect on improving thermal comfort and reducing the heating demand. Add-on ventilators can boost thermal comfort, while having only a minimal effect on energy performance. In case no insulation can be applied, LT-radiators are an option to provide thermal comfort. This however increases the heating demand. Additionally, local comfort was investigated for different measures on the room. It was shown that small interventions such as add-on fans and furniture placement could substantially influence the air currents and temperature distribution within the living room. Also a tool which compares the heating demand of a dwelling with the available heating capacity at a lower supply temperature to determine whether a dwelling is LT-Ready, or what combination of measures is needed to make it LT-Ready. The tool is based on ISSO-51 and has a general approach which can be used for every terraced dwelling It can be downloaded from http://ltreadytool.nl. Overall, it can be concluded that there is a variety of possible LT-Ready renovations that provides thermal comfort and is affordable, depending on the specific scenario. It is proven that deep renovations are not essential to provide thermal comfort with low-temperature heating.

LT-Ready
Renovation
Thermal comfort
Low-temperature heating
Dwellings
Affordability

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Student theses

master thesis

© 2021 Saskia Rutten