Rehabilitation to reduce the energy cost

The absence of a technical building code prior to 1979 has caused that in Spain we have an old housing stock, i.e., that a large part of the already constructed buildings lack a good thermal insulation in the facades and roofsthus affecting a high energy consumption.

In Europe there is a great potential for improvement in energy efficiency of buildings due to these consume more than 40% of the total energy used. In December 2008, European leaders agreed a package of measures to reduce emissions pollutants by 20% compared with the 1990, increasing energy renewable to 20% of the total production of energy, and reducing by 20% consumption of energy with an improvement in efficiency by the year 2020. For give a global perspective, several European countries, such as France, Germany or United Kingdom, have already advanced to these purposes and are focusing quickly towards a strategy of "buildings of very low energy consumption". In practice this means start to build housing for optimal comfort and that you do not need heating or air conditioning systems which already is a reality in many European cities.

In our country, the current thermal Regulation (CTE DB-I 1), with respect to values limits thermal transmittance U for roofs, and especially for facades, is far below the economic optimum values presented in the report Eurima. With these points in mind, and when compared with the current requirements of the technical code, we can conclude that the requirements of isolation and rehabilitation in Spain need improved exponentially, as demonstrated in the study Eurima Ecofys VII (www.eurima.org).

At Knauf Insulation, we believe that the thermal insulation, energy saving ability, and consequently economic, you can be considered a worthwhile investment in the short, medium and long term. The addition of insulation in the rehabilitation of facades, floors and roofs, gives the building of a thermal envelope which reduces heat loss in winter and the gain in the summer, therefore reducing the energy consumption for heating and cooling.