The issue of reducing CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions has gone up the agenda following the announcement by the government that legally binding carbon targets will now form part of the 2009 budget. The United Nations Climate Change conference, COP15, is also set to take a tough stance on greenhouse gas emissions from buildings by calling for more sustainable building (http://en.cop15.dk/). With this in mind, it has never been more important for building owners, property managers and building contractors to ensure that they are meeting increasingly strict regulations.
Older buildings often have damaged, corroded, unsealed joints and are often of single skin construction. The building envelope will have very poor insulation properties and typical air leakage rates three times higher than today’s worst acceptable performance.
One way to reduce the energy consumption and CO2 emissions is to refurbish the building envelope to increase the thermal efficiency of the building. Refurbishment could be either through a metal based re-sheet or overclad. It is possible to dramatically increase the thermal efficiency of a building and so reduce energy consumption by up to 60%.
Installing high quality products, and ensuring correct practices to effectively seal the building and meet the current insulation performance requirements, will enable the building performance to approach that of a complete new build.
By working closely with supply chain partners, leading manufactures are able to create building envelopes which can meet and exceed demands of Building Regulations and legislation.
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By Ian Clarke, Applications Development Manager at Corus Colors
Tags: building envelope, building regulations, COP15, overcad, thermal efficiency
