The Sustainable City VIII, Vol.

2 803

Thermal envelope retrofit:

an assessment framework
A. Sarhan, B. Gomaa & M. Zaher
Architectural Engineering and Environmental Design Department,
Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport,
Egypt

Abstract
Generally, energy consumption in buildings has increased in the last 10 years by
almost 95%, and with existing stock that is expected to have a long life;
sustainable improvements to buildings should extend to existing buildings as
well as new builds; retrofit should be embraced by developing an integrated
decision to assess existing buildings’ conditions and to recommend an optimal
set of sustainable retrofitting strategies.
Energy consumption in office buildings is one of the highest compared to
other building types; with an annual consumption that ranges between 100 and
1000kWh/m2 depending on geographic location, use, type of office equipment,
type of envelope, use of HVAC systems and type of lighting. Several factors
could reduce the energy consumption in offices; such as passive design, energy
conservation plans, water management systems, controlled lighting systems, use
of renewable energy, limited use of active air conditioning system and building
envelope improvements. This paper aims at developing an assessment and
retrofit strategy for improving the energy performance of offices with focus on
the building’s envelope which with careful design could reduce energy
consumption and carbon footprint by up to 15%.
The paper starts by exploring the features of the building envelope, and how
they impact energy consumption, in addition to suitable retrofit systems. Both
envelope elements and retrofit systems formulate a framework; which is then
applied to an office building in Alexandria, Egypt as a case-study.
Keywords: retrofit potential, energy consumption, existing office buildings,
energy performance, building envelope.

WIT Transactions on Ecology and The Environment, Vol 179, © 2013 WIT Press
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804 The Sustainable City VIII, Vol. 2

1 Introduction
Climate change has drawn the attention of many researchers to focus on the
methods, framework and ideas of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions to
achieve low carbon buildings. Necessity to reduce fossil fuel consumption and
CO2 emissions led to energy efficient improvements of existing buildings
specially office buildings as they consume energy higher than other building
types [1]. Retrofitting existing office buildings offers significant opportunities
for reducing global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, which is
considered as one of the main approaches to achieve sustainability on the built
environment as well as achievement of low carbon buildings.
Recent research has covered different retrofit strategies for the whole office
building such as “Passive retrofitting of office buildings to improve their
performance and indoor environment: the OFFICE project” by Santamouris and
Dascalaki [2] discussed 10 different office buildings in different climate zones
and studied retrofit strategies for the whole office building to improve the energy
performance and indoor working conditions. “Renovation of existing office
buildings in regard to energy economy” by Çakmanus [3], also discussed the
same topic but from a different point of view where 40% of energy consumption
can be reduced and environment can be protected through reduction of CO2
emissions when using energy efficiently in office buildings, an energy efficiency
evaluation is done on the case study building and then a set of possible measures
to increase the energy efficiency in the building are concluded. Also “A hybrid
decision support system for sustainable office building renovation and energy
performance improvement” by Juan et al. [4], develops an integrated decision
support system to assess existing office building conditions and to recommend
an optimal set of sustainable retrofit actions while considering the trade-offs
between renovation cost, improved building quality and environmental impacts.
Not many references discussed the retrofit strategies of the thermal envelope as
an effective factor in office buildings. Only a few strategies are mentioned as a
part of the whole building retrofit plan in the previous research. In this paper
features of the building envelope are to be studied and how they impact energy
consumption, and what are the suitable retrofit systems. Both envelope elements
and retrofit systems formulate a framework; which is then applied to an office
building in Alexandria-Egypt as a case-study using energy simulation software.

2 Building envelope features

The building envelope is the front line of the building’s interface with the
exterior environment and climate, it is important in maintaining desired interior
comfort conditions for occupants; it consists of exterior walls, windows, roof,
exterior doors and floors, and therefore it’s a critical element in the energy
performance of any building and vital to the performance of low to net zero
energy buildings. Lighting, passive design and energy conservation affect the
building envelope through several factors such as the daylighting and natural
ventilation, Daylighting can impact heat gains, while the use of only artificial

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lighting and HVAC systems would lead to high energy consumption rates which
in turn increases the carbon footprint of the building. The envelope separates the
building from the surrounding environment, which highlights the importance of
its thermal characteristics. The overall performance of the building envelope
typically affects 15–30% of overall energy use [5].
The objective is to limit thermal losses during winter and thermal gains
during summer; a building envelope designed considering light, heat and sound
as a whole and carrying required performances can be called optimum building
envelope which has visual, thermal and acoustical comfort for occupants.
The exterior environment can generate thermal energy loads within a building
in all modes of heat transfer such as conduction, convection and radiation;
thermal design is about controlling thermal loads at the perimeter, due to the
exterior environment, and controlling the internal heat gain loads. The primary
factors influencing thermal transmission are the temperature differences between
the interior and exterior surfaces of the building envelope and the capability of
the building envelope to resist thermal energy flow.
The overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) is an index for comparing the
thermal performance of buildings. It measures the average heat gain into a
building through the building envelope in order to reduce cooling loads for air
conditioning systems used in buildings for energy conservation; it consists of
three major components: conduction through opaque walls, conduction through
window glass and solar radiation through window glass (Hui [6]).
The U-value for various assemblies in a building envelope is an important
design factor in reducing the OTTV, thus the building envelope should be
designed and constructed with low U-value for wall, roof, slab, glazing and door
assemblies and other openings. It indicates the hourly rate of thermal energy
transfer per unit square area of a thermal barrier per unit temperature difference.
The inverse of heat flow, or resistance to heat transfer, is expressed as an R-
value, which measures thermal resistance; in addition to thermal transmittance
properties of construction assemblies, the detailing of the building envelope and
eliminating thermal bridging also plays a critical role in reducing heat flow
through the envelope.
Any opening in a building’s envelope including windows, doors and skylights
can be called fenestration; it has always been regarded as the weak element in the
building envelope due to its role in determining the energy balance of the
building, at the same time cooling performance becomes a significant parameter
for evaluating the energy performance of the buildings.
One of the major energy performance characteristics of fenestration products
is the ability to control solar heat gain through glazing which is one of the most
important factors in determining the air-conditioning load in commercial
buildings; another important factor in glazing system design is the window-to-
wall ratio (WWR) for the building, and its different orientations. The WWR
needs to be no larger than necessary to provide the required level of daylight and
natural ventilation. It should also be designed for quality views and connections
to the outdoors, most of high energy performance buildings have WWR of 25%

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806 The Sustainable City VIII, Vol. 2

to 35% (Hootman [7]). Building regulations in different countries and states also
usually indicate ideal WWR for different orientations.
Solar radiation can cause excessive heating which reduces cooling
requirements. When WWR reduction is not possible the use of shading devices
might be a successful alternative in which it minimizes glare, where horizontal
shading can be applied for south windows which can be also useful on the east
and west windows; vertical louvers can be applied for east and west facing
windows and can be used on north windows to block early morning and late
afternoon low sun. Daylight is one of the most important strategies for net zero
energy buildings because it can lead to substantial energy saving It is necessary
to distribute the calculated area of glazing so that daylight can reach all parts of
the room. Outside air enters the building through infiltration and ventilation, for
mechanically ventilated commercial buildings reduction of infiltration and
optimizing ventilation for fresh air requirements is an important strategy for low-
energy and net zero energy buildings, as proper detailing can result in energy
cost saving up to 36% for heating and cooling (Hootman [7]).
The integration of vegetation on buildings through vertical greening such as
green facades and living walls allows obtaining a significant improvement of the
building’s efficiency and environmental benefits; measurements on a plant
covered wall and a bare wall shows a temperature reduction at the green façade
in a range of 2 to 6°C compared with the bare wall (Perini et al. [8]).
For the roofs; green roofs are important for the urban heat island effect,
reduction used also to hold storm water and improve the insulation properties of
a building, hence reducing annual energy consumption (Bell et al. [9]).
Also cool roofs or roof coatings that reflect the sun’s energy instead of
absorbing it is becoming a new energy standard, their effectiveness is determined
by their high reflectance and high emittance.

3 Methodology
A literature review was conducted first to study the performance of existing
office buildings and to set the factors affecting their energy consumption,
international successful examples of retrofitting office buildings were studied in
order to identify different retrofit strategies to be applied to the selected case
study building where its energy-related behavior was studied through the
information from the technical staff of the building. Energy simulation software
was used for accurate calculation of energy consumption and in order to assess
the effectiveness of proposed retrofitting scenarios aiming to improve their
energy performance.

4 Case study
4.1 Building description

The office building (Petroleum Complex) is located in Alexandria, Egypt; it was

designed in 1995 and construction in 2000 finished. The building consists of five

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floors; ground and 4 typical floors of a total construction area of 3370m2, it’s a
free-standing building. Weather in Alexandria is Mediterranean, January and
February are the coolest months with average daily maximum temperature
ranging from 12ºC to 18ºC while July and August are the hottest months with
average daily maximum temperature of 30ºC, average monthly relative humidity
is 74%. The building uses central mechanical ventilation system, heating cooling
and ventilation systems are used to acclimatize the indoor environment and to
maintain indoor air quality. Cooling system is used mainly in summer according
to the weather conditions, it’s an air-cooled liquid chiller with heat recovery
system and runs on electricity and heating systems are not used in winter.
Comfort temperature range for offices is around 22ºC and for circulation spaces
20ºC. Number of occupants is 400 which operate on a twelve-hour basis during
the weekdays, the building’s typical working hours are from 5am till 5pm on the
weekdays and is off on Friday and Saturday except for the control rooms which
are on 24 hours all week. The main building structure is made of reinforced
concrete. Elevations are mainly made up of curtain walls of blue double glazed
80% reflective glazing which consists of aluminum frames. Also there is a
skylight above the main court in the building which is single glazed; the roof is
20cm flat insulated roof. The interior space layout is an open plan, consists of 4
wings connected through 4 main corridors, having a big court in the middle
where the offices are located on the perimeter of the building with secondary
double loaded corridors (Figure 1).
The monthly energy bills of the building indicate an average consumption of
157584 kWh with highest consumption of 169585 kWh is recorded in August
and the lowest is 110623 kWh in January.

4.2 Building envelope energy audit and possible retrofits

Based on example analysis and literature review, Table 1 is derived to help in the
audit of building envelopes and their retrofit strategies. The table is split into five
sections; wall insulation, floor insulation, roof insulation, fenestration, and
orientation showing different retrofit strategies possible. The building uses
mechanical ventilation so natural ventilation is not used; the building is a tilted
rectangle of dimensions 60m x 67m and height 20m, all elevations are unshaded
externally with large area of fixed curtain walls which lead to heat gains
increasing the use of mechanical ventilation. Tinted glazing leads to inefficient
use of daylighting, where inner set of offices only get very poor daylight from
the skylight as they overlook the court in the middle of the plan, internal shading
devices (blinds) are installed in all offices, operable from inside of each office
and are used frequently by occupants to avoid in sun subject façades.
Exterior walls are not insulated, they consist of a 20cm brick wall, 2cm
interior and exterior paint which has a total u-value of 1.5 W/m2K.
DesignBuilder software was used to identify the u-value of different thermal
elements of the building. WWR in all elevations is 80% except for the north and
north west elevations are 90% of blue double glazed curtain walls with a u-value
of 2.7 W/m2K. For each façade; the area of unshaded windows exposed to direct
sunlight in the north-east elevation is 880m2, the north-west is 1098m2, the

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808 The Sustainable City VIII, Vol. 2

Table 1: Possible retrofit strategies.

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Table 1: Continued.

BUILDING ENVELOPE 

Figure 1: Typical floor plan of the case study building.

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810 The Sustainable City VIII, Vol. 2

south-west is 1072m2 and the south-east is 960m2. The total area of exposed
windows is 4010m2. Conventional roofs are installed to the building, with single
glazed skylight. 3130m2 roof assembly consists of 20cm reinforced concrete
roof, interior paint and insulation material having a u-value of 0.5 W/m2K. Area
of skylight is 240m2 with a u-value of 3.7 W/m2K located on top of the atrium on
the four corners of the building. Throughout the building’s envelope audit,
critical energy factors are identified, accordingly improvements that could be
carried out will be applied in the energy simulation program for assessment. For
daylight enhancement, blue double glazing could be replaced with clear double
or triple glazing, and insulated window frames could be used, external wall
insulation can be applied as well to the building, spray-in-place foam can help
reduce infiltration through the building cracks; according to the Egyptian code
for improvement of energy efficiency usage in buildings, the WWR should be no
more than 30% specially in the south-west and south-east elevations where the
existing WWR is 80%; thus reducing some of the windows might help reduce
heat gains, also external shading devices could be added to reduce glare, for
south-west and south-east elevations horizontal louvers can be added and for the
north-east elevation vertical louvers can be added. Green roofs can be added to
the conventional roof already existing to improve the roof’s u-value to
0.3 W/m2K.

4.3 Building envelope simulation

The energy consumption is calculated through energy simulation program

(DesignBuilder) and the readings of monthly energy consumption are used for
verification. The model was run on a 64-bit laptop with an Intel Core i5
processor, simulation of a monthly energy consumption result took around 8
minutes; this allowed running the model repeatedly as required for error
checking throughout the development process and the incremental development;
after the initial model development, the model was thoroughly checked for errors
until the simulations gave realistic results.
The simulation model is divided into several blocks representing each floor,
which are then divided into four zones where each zone represents an elevation.
Because HVAC is outside the scope of this research, mechanical cooling is not
changed and set to 20ºC in summer and 22ºC in winter and circulation corridors
are set to 20°C all year.
A whole year has been calculated for the base case model and the results were
compared to energy bills (Figure 2).
Incremental improvements are applied to the building according to energy
audit (Table 1), in which the most applicable strategies to reduce the energy
consumption of the building in a retrofit are applied. The incremental
improvements simulations are calculated in the summer month (August) as this
month has the highest temperature and heat gains as well. Incremental
improvements are applied to the building in which the most applicable strategies
to reduce the energy consumption of the building in a retrofit are applied. Three
upgrades were conducted; upgrade case A; WWR adjustments (to accommodate
the requirements of the Egyptian code for improvement of energy efficiency

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200000
Simulation Results
180000
Actual Consumption (Bills)
160000
140000
Consumption (kWh)

120000
100000
80000
60000
40000
20000
0

Figure 2: Simulation and actual consumption monthly results of case study

building.

usage in buildings) in which the WWR of the building facades are changed to
30% for all elevations except for the north elevation which was kept as it is.
Upgrade case B; following the WWR improvements comes the improvement
to the thermal characteristics of the building envelop improve its u-value through
the addition of 20cm insulation to external walls, also glazing was changed to
triple glazed clear with argon fill instead of blue double glazing with air fill as
well as green roof.
Upgrade case C; addition of external fixed shading devices was applied; 0.3m
horizontal louvers were applied to the building elevations.
All shading design was conducted to calculations by using the following
equation, where sizing overhangs and fins can be determined, also calculating
depth required for shading element or extent of shadow cast by shading element
with a given depth (Eqn. (1).

(1)

4.4 Results

As a result of the analysis on the energy consumption reduction the lower the
WWR, the less the exposure, heat gains and the less the chiller consumption as
the cooling becomes more efficient which reduces the energy loads and
consumption by 24662 kWh which is equivalent to 13%. This retrofit strategy
was the most effective compared to the other strategies applied to the building
and resulted in great reductions.
The improvement of the u-value of the skin (insulating walls, replacing
window glazing and addition of green roof) was not as effective as the WWR

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812 The Sustainable City VIII, Vol. 2

improvement in case A yet reduction was 3838kWh which is a further reduction

of 2.5% of the total consumption, 20cm insulation was added to the walls,
window glazing replaced to triple glazed clear argon fill 3mm and the green roof
was installed above the conventional roof; also the addition of external shading
resulted in reduction of 4938kWh which is 3% reduction of the total
consumption in addition to previous reductions in case B (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Detailed accumulative reductions.

5 Conclusion
The research investigated the auditing of the energy impact of different aspects
of the building envelope, which was concluded from a literature review which
studied several factors affecting the building envelope energy performance of the
existing buildings. The factors affecting building envelope performance and
possible retrofit strategies concluded in Table 1 were then conducted in the case
study building energy simulation.
Three cases were studied; the base case which is the existing case, case A
which is the window to wall ratio adjustment, case B is the improvement of the
u-value of the building skin and case C is addition of shading devices to the
building. As a result of the analysis on the energy consumption reduction; the
lower the window to wall ratio, the less the exposure, heat gains and the less the
chiller consumption as the cooling becomes more efficient which reduced the
energy loads and consumption by 13%. This retrofit strategy was the most
effective compared to the other strategies applied to the building and resulted in
great reductions, this percentage is also variable depending on the building size
where the size of this building could respond to several retrofit strategies and a
larger building could just need one retrofit strategy.

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WIT Transactions on Ecology and The Environment, Vol 179, © 2013 WIT Press
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