Demolition vs.

refurbishment for
the old houses: a regional cost-
benefit analysis

ECEEE – panel 5
09 june 2011

Dominique OSSO,
Benoit ALLIBE, Marie-Hélène LAURENT
Switching from old inefficient individual house
to small efficient multi-storey building (France)
Old individual house
!   Context : reduction of urban sprawl in favour of denser urban
structure by building a small multi-storey dwelling in place of an
individual house

!   Methodology based on a cross-sectional survey and regional

figures

!   Assessment of the energy savings between 2 options:

!   retrofitting
!   new building

!   Evaluation of co-benefit on the transportation side

!   Exploration of the link between the potential of demolition (i.e.

the estate market pressure) and the energy consumption:
!   9 urbanized regions are corresponding to 60% of the population

(limit between rural and urban areas 98 inhab./km²)

Small muti-storey building

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Current scenario for new buildings

New buildings in France (2005 data)

!   Rural areas: 140,000 units (80% individual houses)

! Urban and suburb areas : 110,000 units (60% multi-dwellings)

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Which options ?

A refurbished A small multi-storey

individual house building

•  1 household in urban •  several households in

area urban area
•  Energy efficiency and
•  Energy efficiency sufficiency
•  Reduction of urban
• Transportation by car sprawl (transportation co-
benefit)

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Data used

Cross-sectional data: 2012 representative French

households database (June 2009) – housing and
transportation survey
Space Socio- Energy
Dwelling Dwelling
Topic
characteristics
heating
environment
economical Behaviour consumption
system data (bills)

Number of question 39 9 4 16 12 5

Regional data (21 areas)

!   MEDDTL (Ministry of energy, environment and housing)
!   National statistics agency (INSEE)
!   Solicitor's office survey (notary)
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 Theoretical analysis

A regional viewpoint

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Regional estate market in France
Provence – Alpes – Côte d’Azur (inc. Presqu’ile de Gien)
160000 2500

140000 Ile de France (inc. Paris)

2000
120000

100000 1500
average price of parcel
Cost (€)

80000 (Euro)

surface (m²)
average surface of parcel
60000 1000
(m²)
40000
500
20000

0 0
30 130 230 330 430 530 630 730 830 930 1 030
regional density (inhabitant/km²)

400 000

cost of an existing house (€)

New buildings – plot of land’s cost and plot size 350 000
300 000
250 000
200 000
150 000
100 000
50 000
-
Price of purchase of an existing house 0 200 400 600 800 1 000
regional density (inhabitant/km²)

7 – ECEEE 2011 Year 2009 data

Comparison between the cost of individual and
multi-storey new buildings
!   In dense area (>98 inhab./km²) cost of a new flat is lower to the
cost of a new individual house
1,3
cost of new flat/cost of new house

1,2

1,1
New flat more expensive
1,0

0,9
New house more expensive

0,8

0,7

0,6
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1 000
regional density (inhabitant/km²)

Ratio of total cost between new flat and refurbished existing house in relation to regional density

8 – ECEEE 2011 Year 2009 data

Comparison between the cost of refurbishment
vs. new multi-family building
!   In dense area (>98 inhab./km²) cost of a new flat is lower to the
cost of purchasing an existing house and refurbishing it

1,3
cost odf a new flat / cost of an purchase

1,2
and retroffiting of an old house

1,1 New flat more expensive

1,0
Old retrofitted house
0,9
more expensive
0,8

0,7

0,6
30 230 430 630 830 1 030
regional density (inhabitant/km²)

Ratio of total cost between new flat and refurbished existing house in relation to regional
density
9 – ECEEE 2011 Year 2009 data
Space heating consumption of old individual
houses – a link with density ?
!   No correlation between theoretical (EPC) or observed consumption (energy bills)
with regional density
!   Theoretical space heating efficiency: 304 kWh/m²
!   Observed consumption: 177 kWh/m²

it seems to be an error,
in forecasting scenario,
to think that demolished
houses were those with
the lowest efficiency (i.e.
the highest energy
consumption)

Specific consumption (observed and theoretical) for space heating (kWh/m²) in accordance
with regional density for old houses (built before 1975) in the cross sectional data

10 – ECEEE 2011 EPC: Energy Performance Certificate

 Case studies

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Two case studies & a reference

!   Reference situation: (1) individual old house

and located in urban area (and 9 average
dwellings)

!   Refurbishment scenario: refurbishment of

an (1) old house located in an urban area
coupled with the construction of (9) new
houses in rural area (continuous urban
sprawl)

!   Demolition scenario: demolition of an old

house and replacement by a (10) multi-
dwelling building in an urban area (limited
urban sprawl)

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Energy consumption and cost for the scenarios

Space heating consumption (MWh/dw) depending on location (rural/urban)

and age of building (<1975 or >2000 )

Region
(limit: 98 inhab./km²) old building old building Average
new flat new house
refurbished without retrofit dwelling

High density - - - 7.5

13.1
Low density 8.0 18.7 4.6 -

Costs (€) of different options in relation to population density

Region
(limit: 98 inhab./km²) Purchase of Retrofitting Demolition Purchase of Purchase of
old house of old house of old house new flat new house

High density 244,800 37,651 20,000 202,168 -

Low density - - - - 230,131

13 – ECEEE 2011 Year 2009 data

Energy consumption for transportation

!   short distance travels are concerned (data from cross-sectional survey)

Region Minimal distance to

Expense for petrol Assessed
(limit: 98 inhab./km²) collective
dedicated to local consumption
transportation
travels (€) (kWh)**
system (km)

Old house 2.7 892 7993

New flat in high density area 1.8 789 7069

New house in low density area 3.0 841 7540

*1.14€/l

minimal distance to collective

transportation system* (km)
1,4
1,2
1
0,8
0,6
0,4
0,2 *bus, underground,
0 tramway or train
rural peri-urban suburbs inner city
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Energy consumption for the 10 households

!   Only space heating consumption is differentiating scenarios

250

transportation (MWh) space heating (MWh)

80
200

150
MWh/year

76
137

71
100

75
50
46

0
reference demolition scenario refurbishment scenario

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Cost of saved energy (CSE)

! space heating and transportation energy savings considered

CSE (€/kWh)
40

35
Demolition
30 scenario is
25 36% less
20 costly
36
15

10
23

0
demolition scenario refurbishment scenario

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Sensitivity analysis to flat number

50%
overcost of demolition vs. retrofit (%)
40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
-10%
number of dwellings

38,0
36,0
34,0

CSE (€/kWh)
32,0
30,0
28,0
26,0
24,0
refurbishment
22,0
demolition
Impact of the number of new flat built on CSE 20,0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
number of dwellings
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Conclusion – (even if exploratory works)

!   Accessibility of plot of land partly linked to population density

(necessity to reduced urban sprawl)

!   Energy efficiency and consumption without any correlation with

population density (not the poorest efficient dwellings demolished)

!   New small multi-dwelling buildings is more profitable than

retrofitting of old house (less costly when > 8 dwellings)

!   Only small co-benefit on the transportation side

!   How to implement such policy :

pre-emption right on house for sale by the municipality

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