RETROFITTING BUILDINGS TO BE SUSTAINABLE AND ENERGYEFFICIENCY: A CASE STUDY IN PUNCAK ISKANDAR.

1.0

Introduction

There are rapid new construction in Malaysia trying to achieve the Green Building certificate
by adopting the sustainability and energy efficiency in the project to respond to the government to
reduce carbon emission footprint. However, most energy is consumed by existing building (Ma,
Cooper, & Ledo, 2012). Therefore, the government has introduced retrofitting of existing building
through Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA). The National Green Technology
Policy was launched in order to encourage owner of the building to adoption of Green Technology by
retrofit the existing building.
Therefore, what is the retrofitting that has been talking all over the world? Wood (2006) identify
retrofit as a building which adapted a new use, that reduce the operational energy and maximizes the
enduring benefit that is already incorporated in the building. While, Low, Gao & Tay (2014) defined
retrofit as provision, extension or substantial alteration of the building envelope and building services
in connection with the existing building. Thus, it can be conclude that, retrofitting is adaption and
renovation parts of building envelope and services in order to enhance energy saving and sustainability
of the building. With this method, more energy wastage could be reduce.
Thus, what is the benefit of adopting retrofitting in existing building? Retrofitting promotes
various benefits and give advantages which enables to avoid associated wastes and conserves embodied
energy associated with new developments, generates greater investment in returns, having low energy,
operating and lifecycle cost, and lastly provide better indoor environment quality (Nazri et al.,2015).
Ma, Cooper, & Ledo (2012) added that retrofitting also offers great opportunities for improved staff
productivity by produced better thermal comfort, improve a nations energy security and corporate
social responsibility, reduce exposure to energy price volatility, create job opportunities and lastly,
make buildings more liveable.
This paper aims to give an overview on retrofitting of existing residential building in order to
enhance the sustainability and energy efficiency of the building. It will also discuss the best ways to
adopt and adapt the green element in the building and advantages for the each methods.

2.0

Case Study

2.1

Background of case study

Figure 1: Site layout plan

A case study approach is adopted in this research in order to enhance the sustainability and
energy-efficiency of the building. The Begonia house was selected in this study to serve the research
purpose. It is under the Puncak Iskandar Residential Development under MRCB Land Developer. This
residential house is located at No 17, Persiaran Puncak Iskandar 2B/11, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak
Darul Ridzuan. The floor area of this residential building is 2193sf which include of four (4) number of
bedroom, wet kitchen, dry kitchen and etc.

Picture 1: Front view of the building

Picture 2: Left elevation

Figure 2: Floor layout plan
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2.2

Retrofitting of the building

In order to enhance the sustainability and efficiency of this residential building, it has been divided to
three major factor of enhancement which are: Building envelope, the sustainable energy system in the
building and landscaping.

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3
9

9
10
9

1
5

10

1. Roof
2. Vertical landscape
3. Individual
controlled shading
4. Sun-shade louvers
5. Solar Panel (PV)

Figure 3: Site layout plan

3

6. Solar Water
Heater
7. Raiwater
harvesting
8. Lighting sensor
9. Fan sensor
10. Landscape

2.2.1

Building envelope

Building envelope could be defined as the separator between the interior and exterior of a
building. The building envelope shall also control solar heat gain, conduction or direct heat
transmission, and infiltration or leakage heat transmission (Kibert, 2007). The major items under
building envelope shall comprises of the walls, floors, roof and fenestrations as in figure 4. For this
research, it will focus on enhancing the sustainability and energy efficiency in roof, opening and wall.

Figure 4: Building envelope

i.

Roof

The high-performance of the roof in a building is important due to it is a major component of

the building envelope that expose to the sun. To reduce the amount of solar radiation being absorb by
the roof is by using surfaces with high albedo such as white concrete tile as in Table 1. Kibert (2007)
found that by using surfaces with high albedo for roofing will reduce the ambient air temperature and
reduce the thermal load on the building. While Bretz & Akbari (1997) added that the low surface
temperature of a high-albedo coating also reduces the buildings contribution to the urban heat island.

Table 1: Roofing Materials

Source: Overbey (2015)

The other methods used in improving the energy efficiency of the roof is by adding roof
insulation at the roof. This is because, by using roof insulation, it will reduce the amount of heat being
absorb by the roof. There are many types of insulation that is available for the roof such as wood fiber,
perlite, rockwool insulation, cellular glass and gypsum board. The best effective types of insulation
widely used is rockwool insulation. Rockwool insulation provides effective thermal insulation, acoustic
and fire performance (Rockwoolcouk, 2016). Besides that, it is adaptable to any pitched roof
configuration. Thus, it will lead to better thermal comfort inside of the residential building.

Figure 5: Rockwool insulation's installation

Source: Rockwoolcouk. (2016)

ii.

Figure 6: Rockwoll Insulation

Source: Rockwoolcouk. (2016)

Wall

In order to enhance the sustainability and energy-efficiency of the house, it is suggested to

adding some vertical landscape at the area that highly exposed to the solar radiation. This is being
agreed by Kibert (2007) where by adding some vertical landscape nearest to the wall, it will reflect the
energy by solar radiation. This will lead to reducing the amount of energy used in the building. In
addition to that, it will increase the thermal comfort in the house.

Picture 3: Vertical landscape (i)

Picture 4: Vertical landscape (ii)

iii.

Fenestrations

Fenestrations could be defined as any opening in the structure such as window, door, skylight
and others. For this case study, the research will be focus in upgrading the window. This is because
window play a variety roles in building envelope (Kibert,2007). It includes allow natural lighting into
the room spaces, permit fresh air in the case of operable windows, and provide thermal resistant layer
to energy. In order to ensure that only lighting admitted to the area, it is suggested to use individually
controlled shading inside the bedroom. This type of shading could blockage 50% of solar radiation
(Kibert,2007). This will lead to reducing the energy used for air-conditioning if the area was installed
with the air-conditioning.

Picture 5: Individual controlled shading

In addition, the owner could change the slab sun-shade to louvers sun-shade. This is because,
louvers sun-shade will blocking the solar radiation and permitted the lighting towards inside of the
house as in Picture 6. While the slab sun-shade only reflect the radiation and the lighting are limited to
permit into inside of the building.

Picture 6: Louvers sun-shade

2.2.2

Sustainable Energy System

Oxford Dictionary (2014) defined system as a group of things, pieces of equipment that are
connected or work together. While sustainable energy system is a system that work together in order to
sustain the building to achieve the higher sustainability and energy efficiency. There are various types
of sustainability energy system that available and suggested to be apply in this residential building
which are:
i.
ii.
iii.

i.

Solar power technology or photovoltaic solar cells (PV)

Rainwater Harvesting
Motion detection sensor

Solar Power Technology or Photovoltaic Solar Cells (PV)

Gevorkian (2005) described photovoltaic as electronic devices that essentially convert the solar
energy of sunlight into electric energy or electricity. While Foo (2015) added that it is an elegant means
of producing electricity on site, directly from sun, without the concern of fuel supply or environmental
impact. The basic component of the solar power system is the cell itself. It will generates electricity by
absorbing the energy of photons emitted by the sun to the surface of the solar panel, transferred it
through the cell and creating electrical potential energy (Ronay and Dumitru, 2016).

Picture 7: Solar power (PV)

Malaysia has introduced new renewable energy law on April 2011 where included the Feed-In
Tariff (FiT). The FiT is a new scheme that is available for the owner of the building that has installed
the PV panel which the owner will be paid for any amount of electricity generated in kilowatt-hour
(kWh) with a contract period of 20 years (Muhammad-Sukki et al.,2011). This scheme normally used
in small scaled electricity generation such as residential house. Thus, this will benefits to the owner of
the house which is the electricity gain from the PV panel could be used as the electricity power in the
house while at the same the balance amount could be export to the national grid. The rates for FiT as in
Table 2.

Table 2: Feed-In Tariff (FiT) rates for 2016

Source: Sedagovmy. (2016)

In addition to that, there is another application that can be exploited from the sun which is solar
thermal application. Solar thermal is a technology where the heat from solar energy is harnessed for
heating. There are various system that has been introduced under solar thermal such as Solar Water
Heaters, solar pool heating, solar assisted drying system, solar space heating and cooling, solar airconditioning and solar refrigerator (Mekhilef et al.,2012). However, only Solar Water Heaters is
popular among Malasyians families due to easy installation and low cost of installation.

Figure 8: Solar Water Heater Diagram

Source: Think-solar-powercom (2014)

Figure 7: Solar water heater diagram

Source: Sustainablesourcescom. (2016)

Solar Water Heater consists of storage tank which react as a collector. This system will use the
existing house pressure to move water through the system. When the hot water tap is opened, heated
water from the storage tank is removed to the tap and being replaced by incoming cold water. Water in
storage tank being heated by using direct solar heater and the tanks itself is painted with heat absorbing
black coating and placed in a container or insulating box. It is suitable to be used for this residential
building which will reduced the amount of energy used up to 50% which lead to reducing the
electricitys bill. There are several advantages of using solar water heater rather than conventional water
heater as in Table 3.
Solar power water heater

Conventional water heater

Free and endlessly renewable energy used

Polluting and limited fossil fuels

Annual running cost : RM120 (for

maintenance)

Annual running costs: RM2000 (for maintenance)

350-550 liter storage capacity

180-230 liter storage capacity

Life cycle expectancy: 15-30 years.

Life cycle expectancy: 5-12 years

Zero carbon footprint

Average 8 tons carbon per year

Table 3: Comparison of Solar water heater and conventional water heater

Source: Think-solar-powercom (2014)

ii.

Rainwater Harvesting

The others sustainable system could be used in this case study is by adopting the rainwater
harvesting system. Rainwater harvesting is a system that collecting water and used it to replace the
water used in buildings. The rainwater will collected and channeled through gutters and downpipes to
a wire mesh filter before entering storage tank. The filtration provides some degree of treatment to the
rainwater, but it is limited to the physical treatment only. For this case study, the tank will be located at
the area that has been circled. The underground high density polyethylene (HDPE) storage tank will
collected all the filtered rainwater. Lastly, the rainwater stored will be conveyed to the end-use-point
by a distribution piping system. In the event of overflow, excess water will be channeled to barrel tank
located at the ground. This excess water will be used for landscaping purpose as in traditional ways.
In order to apply this system, there are several things need to be done which is by installing the
gutters and downpipes to collect the rainwater. Secondly, installation of HDPE tank and piping system
in the building. The rainwater will be used for toilet flushing, cleaning the ground, washing cars and
others (Vialle et al.,2015). There are several benefits of applying the rainwater harvesting as described
by Vialle et al (2015):
1. Reduce water stress and environmental pollution.
2. Helps to prevent floods caused by soil permeability.
3. An adaptive strategy to deal with the reduction of water availability due to climate change.

Picture 8: Rainwater harvesting storage tank's location.

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iii.

Motion Detection Sensor

Lighting is important in everyday life. It has a significant potential to decrease the use of nonrenewable energy sources by decreasing the lighting consumption. However, to compromising the
usage of lighting cannot preferably be taken into account. In order to minimize the usage of lighting,
educating people on wise using and avoidance of unnecessary consumption should be given serious
attention. For this case study, the researcher proposed to used timers and motion detection sensor for
the lighting. Motion sensors usually used in outdoor which it will switches switch on outdoor lights
only when a large object moves nearby the light (Bennett, 2008). The motion sensor is widely used in
the residential area. It have become popular among the owners of the residential due to energy savings
and security.

Picture 9: Motion detection lighting sensor

Picture 9 shows a model of motion detection lighting sensor that has been installed in the
residential area. It is a basic model that replaces an outdoor light fixture, which has a sensor and two
bulbs sockets that mount directly to the electrical box (Bennett, 2008). Due to it the light has been
designed for the outdoor used, it should have rubberized gaskets in order to protect the bulb socket from
rain in order to avoid any short-circuit.
Other than that, commonly used for commercial building is motion sensor for fan. It has been
widely used at public area. Currently, this type of sensor has been adopted in order to reduce the
electricity used which its only switches on when it detect some motion. It is recommended for this case
study due to it will reduce the consumption of energy used in the building. When someone come to the
detect area, the fan will turn automatically and when he left the area, the fan will turn off. Thus, there
is no need to control the switch manually. The sensor will be located near to the fan and connected
with it in order to automatically switch on the fan as in Picture 10.

Picture 10: Motion detection fan sensor

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2.2.3

Landscaping

Landscape is important in order to maintain the ecology and nature within the built
environment. For this case study, by adding some trees around the building will be work as windbreaks.
Besides that, the nature of the tree itself will absorb carbon dioxide and generates oxygen as exchange,
and improves the well-being of the occupants by providing greenery throughout the building (Kibert,
2007). In addition to that, the tree could be act as sun shade to the wall of the house. It shall reduce the
amount of solar radiation being absorb by the wall as in Picture 11,12 and 13.

Picture 12: Tree located at back of the house

due to sun-rise

Picture 11: Tree at side of wall of the house

Picture 13: Landscape tree around the house

Source: Jacobsenlandscapecom (2016)
Natural system is important in providing shade and cool the building, and may be able to take
up large quantities of stormwater which it will absorb the water. This will lead to downsizing the
conventional stormwater handling system.

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3.0

Conclusion

Since retrofitting has been widely applied in Malaysia, it has been increasing the sustainability
and energy efficiency of a building. It shall take account the building envelope design, sustainability
system and landscaping. Sometimes people take lightly on greening a building without knowingly the
future advantages. It is found that by energy savings can be up to 40% due to the retrofitting of the
existing building. By integrating building with an ecosystem, an alternative framework could be
designed to ensure a future with low energy profile. On the other hand, the suitability of system used
is important in order to ensure the durability of the system. Proper installation and choices of material
will be advantageous in the future and may lead to less maintenance. Yet, further action and research
should be made on retrofitting existing buildings in order to achieve successfully optimal sustainability
and energy efficiency.

4.0

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