Application of Silica-Aerogel-Fibre-Based Thermal Renders for Retrofits in Building Walls: A Comparative Assessment with Benchmark Solutions

Abstract

The current climate change context raises the demand for reducing energy and environmental impacts while keeping an economic balance and building users’ comfort. Thermal insulation solutions are potential allies in ensuring the adequacy of existing buildings for challenging sustainability requirements. In this scenario, silica-aerogel-fibre-based thermal renders are innovative solutions for which integrated approaches still lack information, and they should be compared with benchmark multilayer solutions, such as those based on expanded polystyrene (EPS), extruded polystyrene (XPS), mineral wool (MW), and insulated corkboard (ICB), to evidence their prospective economic, environmental, and energy benefits. This paper quantifies the optimum insulation thicknesses, life cycle savings, payback periods, and environmental impacts of innovative thermal renders compared to conventional thermal insulation materials when applied as a retrofit in existing facade walls. The results show that cost-optimised thermal renders with sisal fibres led to the best overall performance. Higher heating needs led to higher optimum render thicknesses and life cycle savings. With a 0.02 m thickness, aerogel-fibre-based thermal renders outperformed other materials in terms of heating-degree days (HDD) from 1000 °C·day onwards; they can save approximately EUR 60∙m−2, 1000 MJ∙m−2, and 100 kg CO2 eq∙m−2 while presenting a U-value 13% lower throughout their 30-year lifetime when compared with the second-best multilayer solution with XPS.