Evaluation of economic efficiency of double skin facades according to life cycle costing analysis method

The adverse effects of growing energy demand of fossil fuel reserves and naturalresources hassled the building industry to a search for new technologies thatresult in less energy consumption together with the maximum utilization ofnatural resources. But the façades that occur at the end of these studies makeextra energy costs because of using mechanical ventilation.After the need for the energy efficiency, new technologies that using to supplyoptimum energy are intended to be used by the construction firms. Howeverdouble skin facades have higher initial costs due to their lower energy costs,these systems offer advantages for building cost.The aim of this study is to examine the efficiency of energy use and life cyclecost of double skin façades systems. For this examine life cyle costing analysemethod was used. The building for the case study was an office building inIstanbul. In this study double skin facades were compared with single skinfacades.It was concluded that, however double skin facades have higher initial cost,according to energy use costs and life cycle costs they were much moreefficiency. With the inevitable exhaustion of fossil fuels that is foreseen for thefuture, these systems would become an innovative solution in terms of energyconservation.