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In order to reduce CO2-emissions it is necessary to reduce the energy use in the existing building stock significantly. Gadehavegard – a social housing built-up area consisting of 19 similar blocks of flats with nearly 1000 dwellings situated in Denmark – needed renovation and therefore a block was selected for testing an ambitious renovation that would result in a significant reduction in energy use and CO2 emissions. The ambition was to reach the German Passivhaus standard for the building, i.e. a very strict requirement, especially for a renovation project. The renovation included insulating the facades from the outside, replacing all windows, insulating the roof, installing decentralized mechanical ventilation systems with efficient heat recovery and a photovoltaic system on the roof. In addition, the balconies were included in the apartments by installing foldable glass facades. This paper gives a detailed description of the renovation project along with measurements of the energy use and indoor climate before and after renovation. Comparing the achieved results to the Passivhaus requirements show that the original goal is not achieved, however, the building fulfils the less strict requirements of the Passivhaus renovation certification EnerPHit and is still a very good example on how significant reductions in energy use can be achieved for these types of buildings. Results before and after renovation are compared using the energy signature and shows that heating energy consumption has been reduced by more than 50% even though indoor temperature on average has increased from 21.7 °C to 23.3 °C.

The aim of this paper is to present two Danish typologies for residential buildings developed in the EU-financed project TABULA. The building typologies focus on energy performance and can be used in the analyses of, e.g., political strategies for planning the future upgrading of the energy performance of the residential building stock. Overall, the typologies consist of two types of building models—real example models and average designed models. The main purpose of developing the building typologies was to establish a tool able to calculate different energy-saving scenarios for the entire residential building stock. To make such calculations of scenarios, similar average designed building models were established based on extracted average values from the Danish Energy Performance Certification Scheme database. The two building typologies had the same overall composition, i.e., three main building types: single-family houses, terraced houses and blocks of flats. Each main building type is presented for nine periods representing age, typical building tradition and insulation levels. Finally, an energy balance model of the residential building stock was devised to validate the average designed building models. Compared with the official statistics on energy consumption in Denmark 2010, the results showed a difference below 4%.

In cold climates, mechanical ventilation systems with highly efficient heat recovery will experience problems with condensing water from the extracted humid indoor air. If the condensed water changes to ice in the heat exchanger, the airflow rate will quickly fall due to the increasing pressure drop. Preheating the inlet air (outdoor air) to a temperature above 0 °C before it enters the exchanger is one solution often used to solve the problem, however, this method reduces the energy saving potential significantly. To minimize the energy cost, a more efficient way to solve the freezing problem is therefore desirable. In this paper, the construction and test measurements of a new counter flow heat exchanger designed for cold climates are presented. The developed heat exchanger is capable of continuously defrosting itself without using supplementary heating. Other advantages of the developed heat exchanger are low pressure loss, cheap materials and a simple construction. The disadvantage is that the exchanger is big compared with other heat exchangers. In this paper, the new heat exchanger's efficiency is calculated theoretically and measured experimentally. The experiment shows that the heat exchanger is capable of continuously defrosting itself at outside air temperatures well below the freezing point while still maintaining a very high efficiency. Further analysis and development of a detailed simulation model of a counter flow air-to-air heat exchanger will be described in future articles.

This paper presents a two-dimensional simulation model of the heat losses and temperatures in a slab on grade floor with floor heating which is able to dynamically model the floor heating system. The aim of this work is to be able to model, in detail, the influence from the floor construction and foundation on the performance of the floor heating system. The ground-coupled floor heating model is validated against measurements from a single-family house. The simulation model is coupled to a whole-building energy simulation model with inclusion of heat losses and heat supply to the room above the floor. This model can be used to design energy efficient houses with floor heating focusing on the heat loss through the floor construction and foundation. It is found that it is important to model the dynamics of the floor heating system to find the correct heat loss to the ground, and further, that the foundation has a large impact on the energy consumption of buildings heated by floor heating. Consequently, this detail should be in focus when designing houses with floor heating.