Energy-Efficient Renovation Principles for Prefabricated Timber-Frame Residential Buildings

The timber construction along with the use of suitable and correctly oriented glazing surfaces, whose thermal and strength properties have been considerably improved over the years, represents a great potential in residential and public building construction. However, necessary renovations of the older structures, which present quite a large share of residential fund, should not be overlooked. Moreover, those structures should be adequately energy renovated by the year 2020. Therefore, the key contribution of this paper is the presentation of the available renovation principles, and namely a combination of the improvement of buildings envelope thermal properties, usage of a proper type of installation and share of glazing surfaces in the south-oriented façade, according to affordable investment input. In order to achieve minimal heating and cooling annual energy demand, in the current parametric study, different options were carried out with double-layer and triple-pane glazing, installed in three different types of wall elements, demonstrating the value of optimal glazing surface.