Expert tip: Checklist “Renovation Planning”

 

Exist­ing build­ings of older stock are quite pop­u­lar with prop­erty own­ers since they are cheap­er than new-builds. How­ever, when renov­at­ing these build­ings, there are a few points to con­sider if you want to make sure that your future home is com­fort­able and healthy. Our expert will tell you the best way to pro­ceed.

Tip 1: Careful removal of old pollutants

Asbes­tos, PCBs, wood pre­ser­vat­ives – this list appears like a cham­ber of hor­rors in the his­tory of build­ing mater­i­als. When embark­ing on a renov­a­tion or mod­ern­iz­a­tion pro­ject, you may still come across these and oth­er prob­lem­at­ic mater­i­als that have been proven harm­ful to health. When remov­ing these mater­i­als, you must there­fore pro­ceed with great care and take the neces­sary pre­cau­tions such as wear­ing a fine dust mask. This also applies if you hire a spe­cial­ist com­pany to carry out the remedi­ation work.

Tip 2: Planning with the help of a practical checklist

Once you’ve got rid of the old pol­lut­ants, you should also pro­ceed with utmost care when installing the new com­pon­ents. To facil­it­ate the product choice for ren­ov­at­ors and refur­bish­ers, the GEV – the Ger­man Asso­ci­ation for the Con­trol of Emis­sions in Products for Floor­ing Install­a­tion, Adhes­ives and Build­ing Products – has cre­ated the check­list “What to remem­ber when renov­at­ing a house or flat”. You can down­load this check­list as a PDF file from here: https://www.emicode.com/en/renovation-checklist/. The check­list provides you with an ideal basis for dis­cus­sions with the respons­ible archi­tect and/or pro­fes­sion­al crafts­man. Sys­tem­at­ic­ally, you can go through the indi­vidu­al trades and choose only those products and mater­i­als that are not harm­ful to health. The check­list cov­ers the major areas of mod­ern­iz­a­tion that may impact a healthy indoor cli­mate, includ­ing the install­a­tion of wall and floor cov­er­ings, san­it­ary­ware and (kit­chen) fur­niture as well as the seal­ing and replace­ment of doors and win­dows.

Tip 3: Consider the consequences of a tight building envelope

The pur­pose of mod­ern­iz­a­tions, such as facade insu­la­tion or win­dow replace­ment, is to make the build­ing envel­ope tight­er and more energy-effi­­cient. This does not only reduce the energy con­sump­tion but also the asso­ci­ated costs. How­ever, the tight­er the build­ing envel­ope, the less air is exchanged. Even when the air exchange can be partly con­trolled by manu­al or auto­mated vent­il­a­tion, it is much more prefer­able to pre­vent emis­sions from hap­pen­ing in the first place. After all, the few­er pol­lut­ants in the air we breathe, the bet­ter for our health! This is why it is so import­ant to choose build­ing mater­i­als that have been proven to be harm­less to health.

Tip 4: Install EMICODE®-certified products

Cur­rently, more and more build­ing mater­i­als are being offered that are free from harm­ful chem­ic­als such as solvents, free rad­ic­als and phthal­ates (mainly used as plas­ti­cizers for plastic mater­i­als). How­ever, to be on the safe side and ensure that the selec­ted products can be used without any health con­cerns, you should look out for trust­worthy cer­ti­fic­ates such as the EMICODE® seal. This is exclus­ively awar­ded to products that assure the low­est pos­sible indoor emis­sions, which makes them ideal for use in air­tight build­ings. Products car­ry­ing the EMICODE® seal have been tested for harm­ful VOC emis­sions by inde­pend­ent labor­at­or­ies in spe­cial test cham­bers. To ensure long-term com­pli­ance with the VOC lim­it val­ues, the ini­tial test is fol­lowed by reg­u­lar, unan­nounced spot checks car­ried out by inde­pend­ent experts and test­ing insti­tutes.

Tip 5: Checklist “Renovating a house or flat” – download now!

The check­list enables you to plan and carry out renov­a­tion pro­jects with EMICODE®-cer­ti­fied products in a hol­ist­ic and envir­on­ment­ally con­scious man­ner, thus ensur­ing healthy liv­ing in a sus­tain­able way. Down­load it right here.

Photo: © yakobchuk/123rf/GEV

Do You Have Questions?

If you have any ques­tions on cer­tain top­ics or want to con­tact us for anoth­er reas­on, please con­tact us by phone or email.

Phone: +49 211 / 67931–22

info@emicode.com

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8 Janu­ary 2025