ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF LOW-COST INSULATION RETROFIT FOR OLD APARTMENT BUILDINGS IN YOKOHAMA

Abstract

As an effort to improve the thermal indoor environment for elderly residents in old non-insulated apartment buildings, the low-cost insulation retrofit method was proposed and examined its effect on energy efficiency by conducting numerical simulation of heating and cooling loads. As a result, the low-cost insulation retrofit model was able to reduce heating/cooling load by 15% compared to the uninsulated basic model. The advantage was also confirmed from the viewpoint of cost. It could be an option for elderly residents to adopt the low-cost insulation for improvement of thermal environment and energy saving.