Buildings today are built to maintain a healthy indoor environment and an efficient energy usage which is probably why damages caused by dampness has increased since the 1960?s.A study between year 2008 and 2010 showed that 26 percent of the 110 000 examined Houses had damages and flaws caused by dampness that could prove to be harmful later on. This means that one out of four bathrooms risk the chance to develop damages by dampness. Approximately 2 percent of the Houses had already developed water damages. It is here where the problems appear.

The scope of this investigation is to decide how and to what extent the energy consumption of apassive house is affected by the users? knowledge and habits. To achieve this a literary study hasbeen made and as a complement the planning of a passive house was completed.The result of a primary study of the rules and regulations that effect passive Houses in Swedenshows that the user?s influence on passive Houses is a completely unregulated area. Even thoughthere is no regulation, a need for some general knowledge of the passive house concept has beenexpressed.To further investigate how the users? knowledge and habits affect the energy consumption and ifthere is a difference between different households? energy consumption , three main factors havebeen identified.

Hydroware Elevation Technology AB sells control and regulation equipment for hydraulic elevators. The company now wants to investigate the possibility of changing their present softstarters to frequency inverters to supply power to their pump engines. They also want to investigate the possibility of future use in so called ?intelligent? Houses.The purpose of this report is to investigate these possibilities..

The Energy Performance Certification in Sweden was developed as a tool to achieve the Government's target to reduce Sweden's energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020. The Energy Performance Certificate has previously received some criticism for not fulfilling its purpose. Questions that formed the basis for this report is how the energy performance certification provides support to buyers of single-family Houses and if the energy performance improved in terms of reliability. The report begins with a background description that describes how the energy declaration works and some of the findings of previous evaluations and surveys. A survey to investigate the broker's position to energy performance have been conducted as well as interviews with buyers and sellers of Houses. An investigation whether the energy performance can vary between different calculation programs, depending on various assumptions made by the energy declarant, has been made.Brokers and sellers have proved negative attitudes towards energy performance, particularly brokers.

The Swedish potential of electricity production from roof mounted solar panels has been determined in three steps: accessing the existing roof top areas, simulating the amount of electricity solar panels can produce on these areas and finally analyzing how large the necessary economical change is to make the solar cells profitable.The total existing amount of roof top areas are 319 square kilometers and the area distribution follows the distribution of people. This leads to an installed power of 47,9 GW which are expected to produce 49,0 TWh electricity per year. If the quality of the electricity is prioritized the highest the power is reduced to 3,7 GW, generating 3,8 TWh yearly, but if the hosting capacity is calculated from Sweden?s total electricity need, the capacity is 42 TWh per year.Today, solar panels are not profitable in Sweden for Houses, even though there is a subsidy of 35 % of the investment costs, discounted in 25 years. The profitability is calculated with a cost of capital of 5 %, a price on electricity of 1 SEK/kWh and an investment cost of 20 SEK/Wp.

Summary The place I have been working with is a garden, belonging to a family estate, called Tolvmansgården. It is located on an island northeast of Norrtälje in Roslagen. The frontage is red with white corners like so many other Houses in the neighbourhood, but ours is one of the oldest Houses on the island. Today the house and garden is own by my mother, Pia Johansson. Since I?ve started my education in garden design my interest for our country garden has increased.

Serpula lacrymans infestation has become an increasingly common problem, and is usually perceived as a tip of an iceberg.During the 21st century there has been a perceived increase of damage caused by serpula lacrymans, at AB Mats Fransson Saneringstjänst ? Anticimex in the county of Kronoberg. A similar increase has also been noted by employees at the offices in Kalmar, Karlstad, Piteå, Stockholm, Malmö, Söderhamn, Halmstad and Visby.The methods used to collect data for the project has been interviews with a number, for the project, relevant key persons, such as analysis engineers at Trygghansa and Anticimex, as well as personnel at the botanical institution at Gothenburg University and the Botaniska Analysgruppen in Gothenburg, further statistics from SMHI and analyses of reported instances of infestations have been used.The majority of the people interviewed believe that the increase is caused by renovations of old Houses, higher precipitation during the summer months, as well as a moister climate and warmer winters. The latter can also be gleaned from statistics from SMHI concerning temperature, precipitation, and relative humidity.Analysed damage reports show that the most common cause for the infestation is ground moisture, even when combined wooden materials.Older Houses that where built around 1900 are the ones most frequently infested with serpula lacrymans. The part of the building most frequently infested is the foundation, where cellars and suspended foundation are the most common types to be infested.

The Energy Performance Certification in Sweden was developed as a tool to achieve the Government's target to reduce Sweden's energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020. The Energy Performance Certificate has previously received some criticism for not fulfilling its purpose. Questions that formed the basis for this report is how the energy performance certification provides support to buyers of single-family Houses and if the energy performance improved in terms of reliability. The report begins with a background description that describes how the energy declaration works and some of the findings of previous evaluations and surveys. A survey to investigate the broker's position to energy performance have been conducted as well as interviews with buyers and sellers of Houses. An investigation whether the energy performance can vary between different calculation programs, depending on various assumptions made by the energy declarant, has been made.Brokers and sellers have proved negative attitudes towards energy performance, particularly brokers.

Computers and business systems are used more frequently in a world where IT gradually is taking over. This is also true when it comes to the real estate valuation process where actors on the Swedish real estate market are using automatic valuation systems for real estate appraisal. But the real estate agents have not yet seen the charm in using these automatic valuation systems for real estate appraisal. Can the real estate agents also use the automatic valuation systems? We developed our three main subjects: the valuation process, an automatic valuation system and the real estate market with assistance from scientific articles.

Eco certification of small HousesTo construct an environmental friendly building and show that as a company you care for the environment, is presently very attractive in the Swedish real estate market.This degree thesis covers the environmental certification called ?Svanenmärkning? the Swan, witch is the Swedish equivalent to the European standard ?the EU Flower?. It is concentrated on the certification process in small Houses that the Swedish institute of standard, SIS, has presented. We have worked together with the company Faluhus witch is a Swedish producer of small family Houses.Faluhus is located in the town of Borlänge, Dalarna and has produced family Houses since the 1950:s. They have a great heritage born in the old Swedish mining culture, with great wooden mansions and country homes.

The title of the final thesis is Filmic landscapes ? film as representation, tool and practice in landscape architecture. The aim of the final thesis is to investigate how film as a medium can be used to describe, interpret and manipulate the understanding of a place and its design. What kind of aspects of landscape architecture can film as a medium in a design-process emphasize or create? How can filming, as a self-standing act, contribute to the understanding of the landscape and a landscape-related design-process? The thesis is divided into two parts, one theoretical part that consists of an essay, and one practical part that consists of a 11minute long filmic reflection of the ?Glass-Houses?in Kosta, Sweden, created by the Swedish designer and architect Bruno Mathsson.

All new households were to be constructed with "near zero energy house standards" (NZE-house) by the year of 2020. The ambition to construct energy-efficient buildings had to increase rapidly in the spring of 2013.The purpose of this report was to increase the interest for building contractors to construct apartment buildings with passive house standards. By locating and evaluating experiences from an existing passive house a case study including interviews, field visits and document analysis was made. Research of literature regarding other passive Houses in Sweden also helped to answer the following questions:- What positive and negative experiences have the study of the passive house meant to the involved stakeholders and residents?- What improvements can be made based on identified experiences?- How can an apartment building be designed as a passive house based on possible improvements?By collecting good and bad experiences, as well as improvements and potential design proposals, a diagram was created designed as a tool for developers when constructing apartment buildings with passive house standards.

The aim of this report was to investigate the economy of passive Houses. The work was focused on economy in total and on the economy of different components such as windows, insulation, heat exchanger and the air tightness of the climate shell. No attention was paid on the comfort factor or to the impacts on the environment.Two Houses, aspiring to be passive were chosen; A big one and a small one. Hence, comparisons considering the size of the building have been possible to do as well.The comparisons were made by calculating ?break even? between two concepts; passive and BBR- concept.

Umeå Energi are working towards a goal, that in the year of 2018, they will be completely climate neutral. As a part of this, one target is to reduce their grid losses by 4 % of the 2012 level, which corresponds to an overall reduction of the grid losses of just over 1.7 GWh. In many residential areas, the distribution grid is designed and rated for electric heating as the heating in the Houses. As many of the Houses later has been converted to other types of heating, their electricity use has decreased and the total power output from many of the secondary substations has decreased significantly. Because of this, many of these stations today are well oversized, which in turn means that the energy losses in these stations are unnecessarily high.In this degree project, 25 secondary substations have been studied, all located in residential areas in and around central Umeå.

This paper concerns the stone foundations found in Östra Vrå in Stora Malmparish outside of Katrineholm. The discourse is about whether these constructionsare remnants of Houses, long barrows or some kind of other burial structure andhow to understand the stone foundations in relation to the location. Findings ofgraves in Östra Vrå indicate that the location has a more ritual function than it haspreviously been attributed and that context suggests that the stone foundationsshould be reintepreted..