Quantifying the Impacts of Building Retrofit on Energy Consumption and Occupant Behavior: A Case Study on Residential Dorms

A new approach of retrofitting the building envelope and replacing the HVAC system is being implemented nationally to reduce the building sector's burden on the global environment. This paper presents a comprehensive study on the impacts of building retrofitting on energy consumption and occupant behavior in a residential dorm in New York. The study also provides valuable insights into the multi-faceted benefits of building retrofitting, emphasizing its importance for energy conservation, occupant comfort, and sustainable urban development. We monitored the building's energy usage, indoor air quality (IAQ), thermal parameters, and window/door operation before the retrofit for ten months (August 2021 – May 2022) and after the retrofit for another ten months (August 2022 – May 2023) in 8 residential dorms. We compared the differences in overall building HVAC energy use, window operation behavior, and indoor air quality metrics like total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) and CO₂, before and after the retrofit. We also analyzed the improvement in thermal comfort inside the building by calculating the probability of indoor temperature and relative humidity falling within the comfort zone. Using occupant-centric resilience metrics like the heat index, we compared the performance of the retrofitted building in the event of extreme weather conditions like heatwaves. Moreover, we investigated the impact of Heat Recovery Ventilation (HRV) systems on maintaining adequate indoor air quality levels.