Protect Your Home: Passive Energy Retrofits Vital for Survival Amid Impending Extreme Weather

Prepare for the onslaught of severe weather targeting residential properties. Embracing passive energy retrofitting could be the lifesaving shield your home needs.

Climate change is increasingly manifesting through extreme weather events. The summer of 2023 marked the hottest season in the northern hemisphere in 2,000 years, underscoring the severity of the issue. Such phenomena, including heat waves and winter storms, not only pose significant health risks but also claim lives, disproportionately affecting impoverished communities.

In a recent study published in Cell Reports Physical Science, researchers from the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory propose strategies to fortify residential buildings against extreme temperatures without relying on additional energy consumption. The focus is on passive measures that enhance resilience.

According to the team's findings, implementing a series of relatively straightforward retrofits could substantially prolong the safety of buildings during adverse weather conditions. For instance, these enhancements could extend the resilience of structures from 2 hours to 42 hours during a winter storm and from 12 to 37 hours during a heat wave. Additionally, these retrofits offer the dual benefit of improving energy efficiency and mitigating climate change impacts.

The vulnerability of residential buildings to climate-induced disasters is exacerbated by disruptions to power supply. Recent events, such as the 2019 polar vortex in the U.S. Midwest and the scorching temperatures experienced in 2020, resulting in power outages, water shortages, and numerous fatalities, underscore the urgency of addressing this issue.

Ravi Kishore, Chuck Booten, and their team at NREL identified three key passive weatherization techniques to enhance the resilience of residential buildings: bolstering insulation, improving air sealing, and integrating phase-change materials (PCMs). These measures offer promising avenues for safeguarding communities against the growing threat of extreme weather events.

PCM technology, which absorbs or releases significant heat during phase transitions, has demonstrated considerable potential for weatherization despite not yet being widely deployed in operational buildings. Extensive large-scale and field tests have shown promising results.

To assess its efficacy, the research team utilized an open-source building simulation tool developed by NREL to model a typical single-family home constructed in the 2000s in Houston, Texas. They applied various combinations of three retrofit measures—insulation, air sealing, and integration of PCM—across different building components. Subsequently, they conducted comprehensive whole-building energy simulations under extreme cold and heat conditions observed in Texas.

Their analysis focused on the duration for which the living-zone temperature remains within specified thresholds during winter storms and heatwaves. Without retrofitting, these thresholds were surpassed within 2 hours during winter storms and 12 hours during heatwaves.

However, implementing retrofit methods on ceilings and walls significantly extended these durations to 44 hours and 37 hours for extreme cold and heat, respectively. Notably, PCM integration proved particularly effective in regulating temperatures compared to insulation alone, demonstrating its superiority in enhancing thermal resilience.

The researchers acknowledge the study's limitations, emphasizing its focus on a single Texas building and the analysis of only three weatherizing solutions. They propose future research avenues, including the exploration of additional retrofit options such as radiative coatings and window enhancements, along with field validation studies and technoeconomic analyses to further advance the understanding and practical application of these strategies.

Source: Sajith Wijesuriya et al. "Enhancing thermal resilience of US residential homes in hot humid climates during extreme temperature events." Cell Rep. Phys. Sci. 2024.

Source: Anthropocene Magazine‍