[Greenbuilding] CF analysis of tearing down a house vs. renovation?

[John Straube]

Love to hear the answer.  The difference in before to after energy use will be a major determinant of the answer.  
Attached is a 1998 LCA of a house in Michigan.  They found 93% of the ENERGY use over 50 years was due to operation, not embodied.  So materials and energy during construction is not that important in normal houses.  The question is, can you renovate to the same level of low energy performance? If that performance is quite low, embodied energy will be quote a large proportion.  If the building has a lifecycle of 75 or 100 years, then operation becomes more important.
Complex question, but a worthy one!
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On 2013-07-23, at 8:29 AM, Matt Dirksen <dirksengreen at gmail.com> wrote:

> I understand its "assumed" that tearing down an old house and building a new high efficient home is still going to have a higher CF than adding/renovation/energy retrofitting an existing home.
> 
> However, can anyone point me to any carbon footprint analysis of something like this? (And yes, I fully understand its  an apples to oranges comparison.)
> 
> Thanks much,
> 
> Matt
> 
> 
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John Straube
www.JohnStraube.com