4 ms·

Try looking around your country: how many modern, well isolated, airtight, tall buildings there are in percentage than modern, isolated etc single houses? In S

by xte 8y ago

Try looking around your country: how many modern, well isolated, airtight, tall buildings there are in percentage than modern, isolated etc single houses? In Sweden for instance most of the buildings are "ancient" enough to be far less efficient than newer one, most of individual houses (that are build generally with a very poor quality and little price) are newer and as a result far better isolated. Also they are easy to be recycled since have far less concrete and far more wood than tall buildings. In France situation is less different since houses tend to be kept for longer time and they are not build until few years with much energy efficiency attention, however they are still a bit more efficient than buildings since they tend to be a bit "newer" in medium.

village-idiot 8y ago
My parents home was new too. So this wasn’t a “new apartment vs. half century old home” situation. I also lived in a more extreme climate too.
- xte 8y ago
  Well my personal case is a mid-size apartment (130m², ~1399ft²) in a building built in the end of the sixties to a newly build home around 210m²/2260ft². Old apartment was heated by a central methane based burner, new house by a VMC with a heat pump and a two solar thermal vacuum panel + 800l heat cumulus (~28ft³/ 211 US gal / 176 UK gal), whole cost dropped around 80%, whole energy consumption drop from around 300-350w×m²/years to around 25w×m²/years... But in medium in the whole country individual homes are newer than tall buildings mostly because they tend to be poor quality to a point that's cheap demolish and rebuild than maintain and also tall buildings are normally property of many different subjects so reach agreements on any upgrade / maintenance is far complex than individual houses and physical space and usable ground for construction around the home is normally far more present than around a tall building... Keep attention that I always talk about mean values, not single buildings. Another thing, I do not know in the USA but in Italy and France construction norms are less tight for airtightness in collective buildings than individual houses, airtightness often play a more prominent role than insulation thickness in term of energy cost. I do not know in big buildings how for instance a VMC (mechanically controlled ventilation with heat exchanger) can possibly work...

by xte 8y ago

village-idiot 8y ago

My parents home was new too. So this wasn’t a “new apartment vs. half century old home” situation. I also lived in a more extreme climate too.

xte 8y ago
Well my personal case is a mid-size apartment (130m², ~1399ft²) in a building built in the end of the sixties to a newly build home around 210m²/2260ft². Old apartment was heated by a central methane based burner, new house by a VMC with a heat pump and a two solar thermal vacuum panel + 800l heat cumulus (~28ft³/ 211 US gal / 176 UK gal), whole cost dropped around 80%, whole energy consumption drop from around 300-350w×m²/years to around 25w×m²/years... But in medium in the whole country individual homes are newer than tall buildings mostly because they tend to be poor quality to a point that's cheap demolish and rebuild than maintain and also tall buildings are normally property of many different subjects so reach agreements on any upgrade / maintenance is far complex than individual houses and physical space and usable ground for construction around the home is normally far more present than around a tall building... Keep attention that I always talk about mean values, not single buildings. Another thing, I do not know in the USA but in Italy and France construction norms are less tight for airtightness in collective buildings than individual houses, airtightness often play a more prominent role than insulation thickness in term of energy cost. I do not know in big buildings how for instance a VMC (mechanically controlled ventilation with heat exchanger) can possibly work...