Applicability of the 4E Building Assessment

In this thesis, I have summarised my experience gained from 12 years of working as a certified Passive House consultant. During this time, I have produced energy and ecological building balances and optimizations based on cost-effectiveness and other client criteria.

Over the years, I have developed an engineering service that I call 4E building evaluation. Here I present the service and analyse its applicability in the field of, or at the design stage of, buildings.

The evaluation of Energy, Economic and Ecological Efficiency and Building Essence criteria represents an additional service (and an additional cost) in the design of houses.

It is even required by the legislator for public buildings or complex construction projects, but not for less complex one- and two-family houses. Has the legislator acted irresponsibly in adopting legislation?

The overarching theme of Generation 19/20 at the Academia Maribor College of Construction was: ‘The potential of modern construction methods for continuous industry change’.

The theme certainly includes familiarisation and training content in project management and early interdisciplinary building design when it is not too late.

Writing the thesis was the first opportunity to apply the knowledge gained from the studies, so we divided the future graduates into project groups and divided the tasks within each group.

These were solved according to the rules of project management, with the result that we became familiar with different topics and at the same time wrote our own project or thesis faster and better.

We know from practice the problems of overrunning an investor’s budget due to inadequate investment project management and uncontrolled design during the planning phase.

I justify the usefulness of the 4E evaluation presented in this thesis with practical examples, where I have illustrated the possibility of calculating variants of the designed building and how the results can be compared with each other.

This can be scored and the scores collected can be presented in a way that is understandable to the layman and as a decision aid for deciding on the most appropriate design for the house.