The effect of different types of building and heat insulation materials on building energy performance and heating cost

Energy is one of the cornerstones of economic and social development and plays a vital role in raising living standards. In parallel with the technological developments in agriculture, industry, transportation and construction, energy demand has increased significantly. A significant increase in energy consumption leads to a rapid decrease in basic energy resources; accelerated the impact of global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, fuel costs and environmental pollution. Developed and developing countries have focused on two important issues to solve the energy problem. The first is to save energy and increase the efficiency of the systems. The second is to focus on renewable energy sources. The energy consumption sector can be divided into four main areas: buildings, industry, transportation and agriculture. Energy consumption in buildings reaches approximately 30% of total energy consumption, and about 60% of this energy consumption results from space heating and cooling on building surfaces. Therefore, energy losses from buildings are of great importance in terms of energy conservation and energy consumption. For this reason, stimulatory measures have been used recently in the construction sectors for the dissemination of renewable energy and energy saving technologies. Energy consumption can be significantly reduced by selecting a suitable design and building components. Thus, up to 77% energy savings can be achieved in thermal insulation on walls and roofs. In this thesis, it is aimed to minimize energy losses due to heating and cooling in a residential building which is examined with reference to the explanations and scientific studies in TSE 825 regulation. In this context, in order to minimize the amount of energy consumed in the reference building and the associated fuel costs, solutions were sought using different insulation and construction materials. First of all, the literature is searched and the existing insulation and construction materials and their technical properties are examined. The study was conducted in two separate branches. Firstly, energy and cost analyzes were made for PMS doped polyurethane material. Then, vermiculite ratios for the same building were analyzed using different concrete (building material). One of the main objectives of the study is to emphasize the importance of the climatic conditions of the building. Therefore, all these analyzes were conducted for the same building shell, for four different cities in four different climatic zones. Numerical analyzes were performed with the help of EES program and energy consumption and fuel cost amounts were compared for each material used. In addition, economic factors were considered for all alternatives. As a result, the results obtained for the proposed materials have been evaluated and it has been observed that a considerable amount of savings has been achieved. It is observed that the thickness of the insulation material is reduced by almost half in all regions when PMS reinforced polyurethane insulation material is used instead of standard polyurethane material. Thus, the cost of insulation material is reduced. While the difference in heat requirement is 4.15 kWh/m2 in the 1st region, this value increases to 13.6 kWh/m2 in the 4th region. When the annual savings amount obtained from fuels is analyzed, it is observed that the highest saving is realized in LPG fuel and this amount reached to 1.456/m2 in the 4th region from 0.44 $/m2 in the first region. Savings from natural gas fuel increased from 0.07 $/m2 in zone 1 to 0.23 $/m2 in zone 4. The amount of savings from coal fuel increased from 0.14 $/m2 to 0.46 $/m2. In addition, the amount of carbon dioxide gas released into the atmosphere due to the insulation thickness of the polyurethane material has been investigated. As a result, the most decrease was observed in coal fuel. This decrease was 0.115 kg.m2/year in the 1st region and 0.378 kg.m2/year in the 4th region. When we look at the results obtained from vermiculite reinforced concrete, for the concrete thickness of 0.2041 m, when the concrete having 37.2% porosity was used instead of standard concrete in the first zone, the total heat requirement for one year decreased from 26.21 kWh/m2 to 24.48 kWh/m2. Again, this value decreased from 101.9 kWh/m2 to 96.18 kWh/m2 for the 4th climate zone. The annual savings from LPG fuel reached 0.62 $/m2 in zone 4, compared to 0.18 $/m2 in zone 1. The annual savings from natural gas fuel increased from 0.03 $/m2 to 0.1 $/m2. Finally, when using reinforced concrete with a porosity of 37.2% instead of standard concrete, the fuel savings from coal increased from 0.06 $/m2 to 0.19 $/m2. When all these results are calculated for the total area of the building, it is concluded that energy savings cannot be ignored.