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EU commission suggest common building code for thermal insulation.
By Hakan Falk at Energy Saving Now (ESN).
Result from investigation by the EU commission.
A short while ago the EU commission published a very interesting investigation about a suggested implementation of a common building code for Europe. The suggestion is to use the Danish building code as a model. It is a very good initiative and it has been long overdue. We have some very unique experiences of the whole issue, since we studied and worked with it for some 40+ years now. Our experiences are also unique in that sense, that we lived trough the implementation phases of what is suggested.
Around 50 years ago, Sweden implemented a building standard for thermal insulation in buildings. Norway (not a EU member) followed quite close and Denmark more or less adopted the same standard around 15+ years later. Denmark has stayed with this building code, with some minor modifications. At the end of the 70's, Sweden did major changes in its building code to include more insulation, but also very important prescriptions concerning surface temperatures and perceived temperature.
The EU commission have in several ways mapped the energy consumption in Europe and have some excellent data that describes the situation. Year 2000 the over all use of energy within the common market was distributed according to the following chart.
The distribution of energy use in buildings, are described in the two following charts.
From this, the EU commission looked at the annual use of energy in the member countries per cubic meter of building space and calculated (with climate corrections) the effect that the Danish building code would have on each member country. The result is shown in the following chart.
We find the investigation extremely useful and the suggestion very well meant. In our opinion, the suggestion of this building codes have all necessary merits and should be implemented as soon as possible. They are however not recipes for a solution on how to avoid any major future energy crises. For the current EU members, it will not even provide a relief. It will take more of fast and forceful measures to do so. For this, we need to analyze the data further, to see what can be done. Based on our knowledge and the experiences from the early implementation of thermal insulation in building codes, we will in the following try to add our view on the data. We will also try to explain why Sweden is the only country that would use more energy, if the suggestion was implemented there.
ESN's (Energy Saving Now) analyzes of the investigation results.
Even if we always thought and still think that Sweden was to slow in implementing the current building code, they still got it less wrong during a very important period in time. For around 25 years and during a very active period of building construction, Sweden had the building code now suggested as a model for EU. The last 25 years, the construction activities declined rapidly, but the over all result is a relatively high thermal quality in the inventory of buildings. We want to describe the history and the current situation as follows,
- The method used by EU to find a suitable model for common Building Code, is based more on statistical analyses than on detailed technical analyses. Due to the timing of renewal cycle, the method will give preference to Building Codes that been in place for a long time and are proven. The Danish (prior 1978 Swedish) stands out as superior, because it is basically sound and have been implemented more than 40 years. It also stands out because it was in force during the industrial building boom in Denmark. If the new 1978 Swedish Building Code would have been implemented 20 years earlier, it is likely that it would show major benefits compared even to the Danish.
- During the last 50 years, we have seen enormous construction activities within the current EU member states. The reason was in some areas a result of the war, but the major reason for everybody have been the urbanization and concentration of the population to the cities. This in its turn a result of the fast industrial expansion and the rationalization of agriculture production. This happened in different periods for different member states. Sweden had the peak construction period between 1955 to 1975. Spain is still in a peak period, that started a couple of years before they joined EU and will end soon.
- Without war and other big structural changes in society, it is a norm that a country will renew the building inventory with 1-2% per year. It had therefore very important effects for Sweden, that they had a relevant thermal building code in place when the construction boom started. If it would have been the current one, the energy use would have been 20-30% less. Denmark was also in a similar situation. Almost all other EU members missed it, for various reasons. Most of them did not have availability to information and experience during the period. It is however hard to understand anyone who missed it during the last 20 years, when the energy picture was clear and the technologies was there. It can only be immature political structure and lack of technical education.
- We now have a que of emerging economies that will join the EU and they can really benefit from an EU building code. This if their political structure understand the issues and EU can explain it to them. We belive so, because the largest interest for our ESN web site, comes from US/Canada and the emerging economies in middle and eastern Europe. They now have a one time possibility to have sufficient building codes, when they go into a construction boom.
- The current EU members, that missed the possibility to have sufficient thermal building codes during the construction boom, should implement such codes as soon as possible. Mostly to avoid to make a bad thing worse, it is not a second chance. Then they should turn quickly to the question on how to improve the current situation as fast as possible. Sweden is ahead on research level with around 10 years and can be almost impossible to catch up with on implementation level, but will work well as a role model.
- It is many things that can be done to improve, but it will take more of support and programs from the leader structure in the country. It needs qualified actions and avoidance of pseudo programs that only preferred suppliers can benefit from.
- Finally a very important criticism of the suggested building code. It does not consider the perception of temperature, by including the influence of emission and storage in the building mass. This is a very important element for energy efficiency in the building. Such criteria was introduced in the Swedish building code 1978 and opens up for massive energy savings. It does also allow for more innovative building design, material choices and improvements in existing buildings. This is a key factor for restaurations and influence on the current building inventory.
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