Handbook of Retrofitting High Density Residential Buildings: Policy Design and Implications on Domestic Energy Use in the Eastern Mediterranean Climate of Cyprus

This book investigates energy use and measures to improve the energy efficiency of public housing, using post-war social housing development estates in Cyprus as its example. On this Mediterranean island, which experiences hot and humid temperatures throughout the year, residential buildings need to adapt to the climate to improve the thermal comfort of their occupants. The book assesses the domestic energy use of inefficiently built residential tower blocks and their occupants’ thermal comfort by considering the significant impact of overheating risks on energy consumption and occupants’ thermal comfort and well-being, with the intention of evaluating the current energy performance of base-case representative residential tower blocks (RTBs). In particular, considering the cooling energy demand in the summer, using Famagusta, Cyprus as a case study. It seeks to identify the impact of occupancy patterns and habitual adaptive behaviour of households on home energy performance in order to provide bases for the information needed to calibrate building energy performance of targeted households.