Review of Energy Retrofit Interventions of External Walls

By environmental and climate change outlook, building construction with energy-efficient considerations has become a priority in the industry, but those  new buildings, in which this approach is observed, in comparison to the existing ones are few in number. Existing buildings are important from various aspects: energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, rate of renovation, annual increase in number and energy imports. Existing buildings play an important role in present energy crisis. A significant part of existing buildings are constructed without considering sustainability and energy measures, and energy retrofit can result in great achievements in reducing negative environmental impacts and reaching the international targets. Furthermore, retrofit of public buildings has become a major issue in relevant organizations and institutions. Due to the newness and extensity of the subject, comprehensive studies have been done on energy retrofitting. Since, energy retrofit of external walls is known as one of the most energy efficient methods in energy retrofit, then energy it is selected as the main subject of this research. In this paper, general technologies for energy retrofitting of external walls are introduced and classified, and common considerations and details for the suggested technologies are mentioned. It should be noted that, passive and active retrofits, specific building factors such as building pathologies, depth or level of retrofit and …  are not considered here. The domain of this research is thermal retrofit, without considering other retrofit dimensions (structure, acoustic, fire protection …).