Environmental impact of dwellings in use: maintenance of facade components

The use of dwellings contributes significantly to human-induced environmental burden in a number of ways, including energy consumption and the maintenance and replacement of building components. The present study deals with the maintenance and replacement of external doors and windows in a Dutch reference dwelling and describes how life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology can be applied to quantitatively assess the environmental impact of various maintenance scenarios for the facade components. First, the most effective way to reduce the negative environmental impact in this context is to replace existing single and double glazing with high efficiency double glazing, thereby reducing energy consumption for space heating. Second, the use of timber frames causes less environmental impact than PVC frames with a steel core. Third, extending the service life of building components decreases the input of material resources, production processes and the waste processing of building components during the service life of a dwelling, which is beneficial to the environment. Maintenance activities should only be performed when needed, keeping the building components in good condition while minimising the transportation movements of maintenance workers. Finally, protecting timber components with an alternative paint that contains less solvent does not lower the assessed environmental impact, but low-solvent paint may be preferred because of health aspects both for maintenance workers and occupants of the dwelling.