Comparative Review of Existing Certification Programs and Performance Assessment Tools for Residential Buildings

Abstract

Several existing certification programs and assessment tools that evaluate housing performance are presented in this paper, showing that there is global trend in defining and evaluating the overall building performance. Some programs are focusing on selected aspects only, such as energy efficiency and quality of materials and workmanship, with only PASS and FAIL categories of assessment. Others evaluate environmental impact of the building by introducing weights to the achieved scores, and by that, they reflect priorities among the parameters. This comparative review presents the state of the art in this field, helps identify the knowledge gaps and research needs, and, finally, serves as a starting point in the development of Canada's evaluation protocol and performance assessment tool for light-frame building envelopes used in residential buildings.