Development of a retrofitting tool for classrooms

Manuel Alejandro Inostroza Pinares

Jeremy Michael Piggot Navarrete

María Beatriz Piderit-Moreno

ABSTRACT: Several investigations have led to understand how architecture and the environmental surrounding such as natural lighting, thermal performance, and air quality influence on learning processes and are the key to provide comfort for the students. The purpose of this research is to study the application of different energy retrofitting strategies in classrooms of the city of Concepción, Chile. The main objective was to develop a tool for the classification of existing classrooms according to their level of energy efficiency to subsequently provide different strategies to retrofit those classrooms. In the first stage the influence of different architectural elements for the environmental comfort and energy demand was defined, also, the different results of the energy simulation developed in EnergyPlus to a typological classroom where analyzed. Then the modifiable variables where determined in order to select those that influence the energy consumption of the classroom in a more effective manner, such as the orientation, thermal envelop, airtightness, type of glassing and percentage of window surface. Subsequently, retrofitting strategies based on levels of architectural intervention and retrofitting costs where proposed, materials costs were recorded in the market, considering transport and installation of those materials. After that, the costs saving in the energy consumption that the application of each strategy would generate and recovery that their application would generate was determined; as a result, an interactive and easy to use tool was created. In just a couple of steps it is possible to see some alternatives of intervention provided by the tool to retrofit a certain classroom. This provides the user with a tool that compares the current situation of a classroom with a more energy-efficient situation.

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