Term Project Blog

Many of my fellow students chose to compare “green and intelligent” buildings. Gayaneh Gulbenkian explains, “Intelligent, energy-efficient buildings are expected to be an important part of future energy systems.” This statement is very true. We must effectively find solutions to increase the efficiency of our existing buildings.

A challenge we face in today’s society is that many of our residential buildings are severely inefficient. For my project I chose to analyze such a building. I chose to look at how to implement green and intelligent design into a typical Philadelphia row home. The preliminary challenge to installing green and intelligent design into these small residential units is cost. Many of the inhabitants of Philadelphia row homes are those who have modest to lower level incomes. I will pick a few of the more inexpensive green and intelligent options and compare their energy reducing facets and look at the overall cost to implement such designs. For example, I will compare the cost of installing new argon filled windows with installing intelligent sensors. I will also compare their energy reducing stats.

In order to accomplish this feat I will have to analyze the building envelope of the typical Philadelphia Row home. I will take an average floor plan (approximately 1000 Sqft) and take average energy cost, average window area, R value, etc. and run scenarios on how the energy efficiency will improve if I install sensors or green argon filled windows. I will look at 2 types of row homes. These types are the end units, that share only one side with a neighboring building and a middle unit which shares both sides with neighbors. Rita says, "we are hoping to stress the point that no building is an island. It exists in a context of numerous and various externalities that constantly influence its performance.” This rings true for row homes. Each unit feeds of the adjacent unit and vice versa. Naturally, end units, will lose more heat to the outdoors because it has an extra wall exposed to the elements.

The overall goal of my project is to maximize energy efficiency while keeping the renovations costs under 10% (arbitrary number for now) of the yearly income of the average tenant. After all, if the tenants cannot afford the initial costs then they will not have an incentive to implement these green or intelligent designs.

Sources:

http://www.rowhouse-magazine.com/featuredHomes/featuredRows_phillyRows.html