Economic Evaluation of Residential Buildings' Envelope Costs

Today, with the rapid depletion of fossil energy sources and the increasing environmental problems caused by fossil fuels, supervision and management of energy consumption becomes more important. Energy saving in residential buildings can be achieved by using heat insulation, an easy-to-use energy efficienct technology. This study aims to evaluate and classify construction, heating and lifecycle costs of different envelope alternatives and identify the characteristics of envelopes with equivalent costs from alternatives derived by changing the building envelope characteristics that affect both the construction, heating and lifecycle costs of the building. Envelope alternatives with equivalent costs are determined and evaluated. Hence, materials with varying properties and thicknesses are able to yield the same performance in terms of lifecycle and heating costs.