Multicriteria decision tool to assist in decisionmaking of housing envelop solutions and heating water system

Nowadays it is relevant to improve the thermal-energy performance in housing envelopes and heating water systems, assuming or not an acceptable increase in costs. This issue is due to the growth of electricity demand expected in the residential sector for the next two decades. The objective of this research was to develop a multicriteria decision tool to assist in decision making about housing envelope solutions and heating water system during the initial stages of the building venture. It associates national energy policy issues, building costs, thermal-energy performance simulation and multicriteria analysis. Then creates a database that puts together the information that will be analyzed by the ELECTRE-III method. The analysis result is a ranking of the building solutions evaluated. Thus, it becomes possible to list the building solutions during the initial stages of design. This is helpful for designers and investors (private and public) because the method offers a solutions ranking based on in costs and benefits, which certainty helps to choose solutions with better thermal-energy performance within the budgeted cost.