Energie- und Ressourceneffizienz von Gebäuden aus Kalksandstein

Resource efficiency of calcium silicate buildings.

By means of two exemplarily regarded buildings (one family house and one apartment building) with masonry construction, the present article depicts, that future requirements, which will result from national and European legislation, can be realised with constructions of calcium silicate without any technical difficulties. In this context, exterior walls with separated functional layers, which were developed by the German calcium silicate industry turn to be particularly forward-looking, due to the fact, that a further enhancement of the thermal insulation of such constructions can easily be realised by increasing the thickness of the insulating material.
The results of a life-cycle assessment show that higher energy standards of buildings lead to reduced ecological impacts (for example emission of green house gas like CO₂) along the whole life cycle of the building compared to lower energy standards due to the high resource efficiency of calcium silicate constructions. In an economical point of view, higher building-energy standards than moderate passive house standard like nearly zero energy standard are not profitable at present if current price levels for building products and energy are considered. This does not result from calcium silicate wall constructions but particular from elaborated building technologies, especially for the generation of energy from renewable resources.