Evaluation of Family Houses in Slovakia Using a Building Environmental Assessment System

Abstract

The presented study is focused on the verification of a Building Environmental Assessment System (BEAS). A total of 13 detached family houses representing typical construction sites in Slovakia were chosen for analysis, evaluation and certification by using a BEAS which contains several main fields: A—Site Selection and Project Planning; B—Building Construction; C—Indoor Environment; D—Energy Performance; E—Water Management; and F—Waste Management. The results of this study show that the current construction method for family houses does not respect the criteria of sustainable construction as much as it possibly can. The reason for this is that investment costs for construction are prioritized over environmental and social aspects. Therefore, one house with a score of 1.10 is certified as BEAS BRONZE, ten family houses with scores of 1.56–2.88 are certified as BEAS SILVER and only two family houses with total scores of 3.59 and 3.87, respectively, are certified as BEAS GOLD. The overall results show that the weakest fields of sustainability are Waste management, Energy performance and Building construction. The best-rated fields are Site Selection and Project Planning, Indoor Environment and Water Management. In the future, it is essential to pay attention to those areas where the sustainability criteria have not been reached, as well as to raise project teams’ awareness of sustainability issues and subsequently to transfer them to building practices.