The Kierling residential complex: from energy guzzler to passive house
- Research project of the "Building of Tomorrow" programme
- Reduction of heating requirement per sqm annually by about 90 percent
- Extensive modernisation with continuous use of flats
After several years of work, a particularly ambitious energy-saving project of BUWOG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of IMMOFINANZ Group, has been concluded. The Kierling residential complex (Kierlinger Hauptstraße 37-41) in Klosterneuburg-Kierling has been refurbished and modernised for energy efficiency and brought to a passive-house standard through a combination of numerous individual measures.
The improvements are visible through the reduction in the heating demand from 97 kWh / sqm annually to about 9 kWh / sqm annually. Thus in terms of energy efficiency the property also outperforms 90 percent of the newly built flats in Austria. Particularly noteworthy: the extensive refurbishment involved in converting a building dating from the sixties into a passive house generally requires residents to temporarily move. In Kierling this was largely avoided.
The project is also a model example of how supportive measures not only make the complex refurbishment into a passive house ecologically advantageous, but economically as well: the development of the rooftop floor with six flats and an additional new building featuring 13 flats on the property has created new high-quality living space and enabled the distribution of shared costs such as building services between refurbishment and new construction.
"The Kierling modernisation project is considerably important beyond this specific property", Daniel Riedl, BUWOG managing director and management board member of the parent company IMMOFINANZ Group, points out. "In Austria hundreds of thousands of flats originate from this period. Kierling demonstrates what's possible here in terms of energy technology. If this example becomes the accepted method, it will lower the Austrian CO2 balance more than all of the energy-saving measures in new construction are able to.”
The measures implemented in Kierling include, among others:
• installation of central ventilation system
• conversion of electric floor heating to pellet heating
• thermal solar facility
• thermal building refurbishment to passive-house standard
The refurbishment and modernisation of the property is part of a research project in the scope of the Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation, and Technology's "Building of Tomorrow" programme. Findings from the Kierling project are to be integrated into the refurbishment of old buildings in the future. BUWOG itself, which is also one of the founding partners of the klima:aktiv pact2020, will incorporate the findings into numerous improvement measures in its Austrian portfolio of older buildings from the 1960s and 1970s.
The innovations in Kierling carried out by BUWOG, which is one of the founding partners of the klima:aktiv pact2020, have garnered considerable public attention, most recently with the ETHOUSE AWARD. This is the most important prize for energy-efficient refurbishment, which is presented by the quality group for thermal insulations systems in Austria, a working group of five of the biggest providers of thermal insulation systems in Austria. BUWOG received the distinction in the category of "Wohnbau Mehrfamilienhaus". The aim is to inform private and public developers about the advantages of a thermal insulation system and to increase the quality of workmanship. The ETHOUSE jury evaluates the submissions based on the scale of energy-savings, the treatment of old buildings, and the architectural implementation as well as the scope of refurbishment (e.g. redesign of inner courtyards, interior optimisation).
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