Renovation of a building and its impact on air pollution

Abstract

The main purpose of the research presented in this paper is to quantify the amount of carbon dioxide produced by a standard house with four occupants before and after rehabilitation measures. As expected, these retrofitting actions had a positive effect on energy consumption and, in consequence, the CO2 emissions decreased significantly. After applying thermal insulation, CO2 production values derived from heating of the building were reduced by 68 %. The replacement of electrical household appliances decreased CO2 emissions by 53 %. Also, based on experimental measurements we calculated CO2 production due to human breathing, for different types of activity. Subsequently, the yearly quantity of CO2 produced by breathing by a standard four-member family was calculated. Finally, we estimated the contribution of human breathing to the total household CO2 production.

Keywords

• building renovation
• indoor air quality
• carbon dioxide