SloveniaType of construction: Detached single-family house
Typology: Residential
Owner: Roman Albreht
Construction systems: Masonry walls, RC slabs, rafter-based pitched roof
Location: Slovenia, Radovljica
Type of construction: Detached single family house
Typology: Residential
Owner: Nejc Tavčar
Construction systems: Masonry walls, RC slabs, rafter-based pitched roof
Location: Slovenia, Sv. Barbara
Type of construction: Detached single family house
Typology: Residential
Owner: Sašo Taškar
Construction systems: Masonry walls, RC slabs, rafter-based pitched roof
Location: Slovenia, Kandrše
There are roughly 524.000 residential buildings in Slovenia and the vast majority – 89% represent privately-owned single-family houses (464.352 units). Most houses were built in 1970’s (18%), followed by 80’s (15%), 60’s (11%), and even the 19th century (11%). Only 5% were built after the year 2000. The houses built during these periods in Slovenia are relatively large heated volumes, often with non-optimal use of living space (large heated hallways, stairs, etc.), with very little or no thermal insulation. They are therefore resulting in large operating costs, often accompanied by mold problems. This is also a source of pollution and carbonization of the environment, which could be reduced substantially.
The average usable area of residential houses in Slovenia is 167 m2. More and more inhabitants throughout the country, especially young families and elderly people are therefore searching for ways to decrease maintenance costs or find better housing. From the beginning of 2020 all new buildings in Slovenia need to be built as nZEB and building renovations follow this concept. The state – also through subsidies offered by its Environmental Public Fund (Eco Fund) – promotes complete solutions for energy renovation (investors can receive higher subsidies for several measures). However, in practice, its approach does not live up to its full potential due to the complexity, lack of trust, and the required excessive financial investment. Additionally, material scrapped during retrofits is often treated as landfield-destined waste. Complete quality energy renovation of old houses is an important topic also in neighboring countries, so there is a high replication potential throughout the whole Europe.
Three representative single family buildings with poor existing energy efficiency in different locations were identified and deeply renovated and implementing circular principles, focusing around material circularity using recyclable mineral wool thermal, acoustic and fire safe insulation with innovative bio-based binder for whole building envelope, newly tested ventilated façade system, 2D prefabricated façade insulated panels, new thermally efficient windows, efficient and renewable-energy powered installations and more. All demo buildings constitute of masonry walls and reinforced concrete slabs with wooden rafter pithed roofs with owners possessing certain levels of DIY construction skills, so homeowner’s centric approach to renovation and circularity was also an important study parameter.
We met the following results in Slovenia.
Case-specific outcomes:
– improved energy efficiency (lowered operational emissions and costs), improved indoor environmental quality, health and wellbeing by incorporating Green-label insulation materials (ECOSE Technology), ensuring more stable internal surface temperatures, improving acoustic comfort and draft issues (more airitight windows and building envelope), enabled more controlled and energy efficient mechanical ventilation (controlled by the user)
Case-specific profits:
– Development and testing of insulation materials and stone wool with the ECOSE binder
– Development and testing of a model for recycling the mineral wool from old buildings
– Improved quality of implementation as a measure for decreasing the gap between theory and practice (by technical support and greater installer’s awareness of measurement results)
– successful demo implementation of new ventilated façade system in Slovenian market
– design, development and installation of prefab “Plug & Play” solution for facades, resulting in much faster installation time.
Case-specific impact indicators:
– End-user centricity – increasing public awareness and improving trust in deep renovation investments
– combining energy efficiency with improved indoor environmental quality, health and wellbeing by incorporating Green-label insulation materials (ECOSE Technology)
– Presentation of demonstration activities conclusions to the Eco Fund, which would then further incorporate them into its promotional-subsidisation activities, thus ensuring dissemination at the national level.
– Production of the “Real Performance – Tips for Efficient Building Renovation” video; events for investors and installers, providing the attractive and understandable information of renovated homes. DRIVE 0 will build upon the monitoring methodologies, data processing and the supporting methodologies to display and present this information to end-users
