An Effort to Refine Home Energy Assessment Methods in Support of Retrofit Decision Making

This research evaluates current home energy assessment tools and practices and investigates their applicability in terms of relevance supporting retrofit decision making in Southwest Virginia. Home energy assessments and audits are comprised of many different tools, strategies, and practices all with the same goal, to achieve accuracy in assessing performance as well as confidence in achieving energy savings from retrofit recommendations. Differing opinions, training, and standards in energy assessments have led to a reduced confidence and reliance on energy assessments, which can ultimately lead to poor retrofit decisions and undesired outcomes. This research undertook an investigation of current tools and practices as well as modeling studies to reveal insights into strengths and weaknesses, and to refine home energy assessments. The goal was to identify opportunities to increase confidence for stakeholders by analyzing energy assessments in terms of what strategies are most suitable to increase the accuracy of capturing different energy influence parameters, as well as to provide a basis for future research and development in this subject area.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Building Construction Science and Management

Department dc:contributor.department

Building Construction

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Ladipo, Oluwateniola Eniola

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Reichard, Georg

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• McCoy, Andrew P.
• Pearce, Annie R.

• Energy Assessments
• Energy Modeling
• Energy Auditor
• Residential

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:1049

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/23151