Expert tip: Checklist “Renovation Planning”

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.