The building sector is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Germany and thus contributes significantly to global warming. To reduce emissions, it is essential to renovate existing buildings. Buildings from the post-war period are among the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. A challenge in the renovation of these buildings can be heritage protection.
In the past, refurbishment measures have often not been carried out due to the protection of historical monuments. In the case that the building envelope is refurbished, important aspects of monument preservation are neglected by changing the appearance of the buildings. So far, this discussion has mostly been conducted on a qualitative level. One aspect that has hardly been considered in this discussion is the ecological assessment of heritage protection. This leads to the following research question:
What is the ecological impact of heritage protection-related invasive and non-invasive measures on post-war office high-rise buildings?
Based on this research question, the following hypothesis is formulated:
Non-invasive measures related to heritage protection have a lower global warming potential than invasive measures when considering a post-war office high-rise.
To answer the research question and test the hypothesis, an energetic-thermal building simulation of a heritage-protected office tower from the post-war period was carried out. There, individual renovation measures and changes to the building's technical settings were first implemented and simulated in the model. Based on this, the individual measures were combined with each other, separated into invasive and non-invasive variants. A life cycle assessment was then carried out for these variants. Here, greenhouse gas emissions caused by electricity and district heating, as well as those from the production phase of each individual measure’s materials, were considered. The global warming potential was used as the impact category.
The results indicate that the hypothesis can only be partially confirmed. In the case of the non-invasive variant, the global warming potential can be reduced by approx. 35% over a period of 40 years compared to the status quo. For the invasive variant, this value is approx. 59 %. In both variants, adjustments are made to the building technology. In the invasive variant, additional measures are carried out to renovate the envelope of the building. However, if only the envelope of the building is renovated, the reduction of the global warming potential is 28 %.
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The building sector is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Germany and thus contributes significantly to global warming. To reduce emissions, it is essential to renovate existing buildings. Buildings from the post-war period are among the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. A challenge in the renovation of these buildings can be heritage protection.
In the past, refurbishment measures have often not been carried out due to the protection of historical monuments. In the case...
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