Home retrofits contribute to the sustainability of residential buildings by conserving resources and energy and improving efficiency of the operations within. The resiliency of a household to disruption is usually a separate consideration, if at all. The up-front costs of both can present themselves as nonessential expenses limiting their adoption. There exist few tools to integrate design for sustainability and resiliency that are available to average homeowners. This inhibits their ability to implement climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. Herein is a systems approach to integrate sustainability efforts with resilience solutions into a computational multi-objective decision support methodology with a financial analysis. The methodology, dubbed ReSus, is shown here with an example case study of a midsize single detached house in southwestern Ontario, Canada through simulation of retrofitting scenarios to support decision making on building upgrades. Applying this methodology details several retrofitting pathways that have the potential to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions as well as provide a positive return on investment that addresses both mitigation and adaptation.
Bristow, DN; Bristow, M
Retrofitting for resiliency and sustainability of households
Canadian Journal Of Civil Engineering