A review of retrofit interventions for residential buildings in hot humid climates

Buildings consume 40% of resources around the world, low energy building is fast becoming a major component of sustainable development. However, limiting the concept of low energy buildings to new builds will only undermine its ef-fects and benefits as there are numerous existing buildings that consume uneconomical energy resources irrespective of how en-ergy efficient the new ones are. Therefore, retrofit interventions to existing buildings is important in decreasing resource con-sumption and increasing energy efficiency. Some various retro-fit interventions already exist towards reducing energy con-sumption in residential buildings but deciding on a specific ret-rofit intervention needs assiduous consideration. Hence, this pa-per focuses on the review of retrofit interventions and their en-ergy performances. It was found amongst others that clay bricks, sand line, and pre-fabricated walls consume less energy than concrete bricks by 16%, 23%, and 25% respectively. Elec-trochromic glazing system with no shading device was also found to have reduced heat gains by 53%-59% in winter and summer. It was concluded that further research would benefit from the combination of the various interventions to create pathways for building retrofit in hot humid climate, the path-ways can be tested with a dynamic thermal simulation software for energy performance.