SR235 Housing life cycle and sustainability: Part 2 (2018)

This report covers a variety of topics related to the housing stock and its renovation/upgrade through its life cycle.

For life cycle cost reasons it is generally better to repair and extend the life of housing rather than demolish and rebuild. But is the same true of sustainability impacts? A total energy use analysis is used as a proxy for environmental impacts to compare renovation with rebuild.

Making alterations/additions to housing is an ideal opportunity to upgrade the thermal performance of existing houses, but this study finds these opportunities are being missed.

When owners retrofit with insulation they usually expect to be more comfortable, and this report looks at cost-effective ways to improve comfort levels.

The final topic is the role of house relocation and the reasons why houses are moved. Thermal envelope upgrades at time of relocation are analysed based on survey results.