Edinburgh Napier University

  "This study looks at addressing the issues concerning environmentally conscious homes and reviewing how efficiently they compare aspirational and predicted levels of performance against measured and as-built figures. Degradation of efficiency is key to the assessment of such properties and analysing whether their impact on the environment is a linear low decline phenomena or a sharp degradation performance route where impact becomes a factor sooner than expected. Following the first year of occupation, this research combines current legislative benchmarks with field study monitoring results in order to calculate how rapid the analysed dwellings decline reaching retrofit and high environmental impact levels causing occupant thermal discomfort. Essentially, selected dwellings will be monitored over a longer period of occupation, obtaining data that can be applied into modelling software to extend the predicted age of the properties, hence estimating building decline and reduction in performance over a longer life span of the homes.

The overarching aim of the research is to explore the performance gap experienced in new house building which disguises any achievable environmental targets created by false energy consumption predictions. It also aims to quantify this gap in performance and obtain a dilapidation factor that can express a larger and faster environmental impact than anticipated. To put it into context, the magnitude of a performance gap is known to be up to 2.5 times the predicted energy use."