Towards upgrading strategies for nZEB-dwellings in Norway

Abstract

Recent work suggests that upgrading in line with the Norwegian building regulations or by upgrading
to the requirements of the national passive house norm, NS3700, can enable nZEB level to be achieved.
The aim of this work is to explore the typical Norwegian housing typologies and some important
characteristics of the building envelope for these houses from different decades. The exploration involved
surveying the typical technical qualities of Norwegian housing and how these have evolved – providing
an important foundation to work addressing strategies and methods for upgrading dwellings to nZEB
level in the next phases of the ongoing research project. The results of this work show that the building
norms and practices developed throughout the years have made dwellings more moisture resilient, with
an increased drying-out potential through mechanical ventilation, control of the air change rate and the
use of more vapour-open wind barriers in the building envelope. Based on this, the work to follow will
suggest strategies for upgrading to nZEB level, solutions for upgrading building envelope components
to high performance level and a methodology for risk reduction of moisture problems in the upgraded
dwellings from the different decades.