A communal building in Haar comes pretty close to the ideal. In the day care center on Dianastraße, the children not only learn how important it is to live in harmony with nature. They also experience that this is possible without freezing in the group room in winter or playing wrapped up in thick jackets. It is warm there, and yet the climate is protected. Climate neutrality? The building “almost manages it”, said Uwe Dankert recently in the local council, where the owner of a consulting office for energy management presented a concept for the energetic renovation of communal buildings in Haar. It turned out that hair will have to spend in the double-digit millions in order to at least achieve the legally prescribed target by 2045.
Because the day-care center in Jagdfeld, designed as a passive house, is the exceptional building in Haar. The facility, which opened a good ten years ago, was designed as a showcase project to demonstrate what can be done in terms of climate protection in a publicly used building. It is a timber frame house with 40 centimeters thick insulation on the walls and 25 centimeters thick on the floor. It has a photovoltaic system, triple-glazed windows and a ventilation system with heat recovery. It took time for everyone to get to grips with the model house. The teachers and the children had to learn not to just open the windows. That was no longer popular in the passive house.
“It’s going to cost a lot of money, but not as much as I thought.”
Now all 70 municipal buildings are to be brought up to the level of the day care center on Dianastraße, if possible. Currently, the Haarer municipal buildings such as the town hall or the schools and daycare centers emit 2,100 tons of CO₂ per year, according to Dankert. Uwe Dankert has drawn up a renovation schedule with a timeline and roughly calculated investment costs for two climate protection standards. “It will cost a lot of money,” said Dankert, “but not as much as I thought.” According to his calculation, a total of 25 million euros would be necessary to reach the building energy law required in 2020 within almost 25 years. For 36 million euros, the buildings would have to be upgraded to an A ++ standard, which would come closer to the goal of climate neutrality. The investment in new system technology would be added, said Dankert, without going into detail.
The energy specialist with an office in Haar advocated aiming for the high A ++ standard for renovation, which goes beyond what is required by the Building Energy Act. The additional expenses are no longer so high, said Dankert. As an example, he calculated that 352 euros would have to be paid for a two-square-meter thermal insulation window with double glazing, and then only a good 50 euros more for triple glazing.
The new construction of the Dino youth club is to be carried out in accordance with high energy standards.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Not all municipal buildings have to be tackled, as the example of the children’s home on Dianastraße shows. The old Maria Stadler retirement home is currently being renovated anyway, and the children’s home in the Art Nouveau park is currently being built. 62 of 70 buildings are listed in Dankert’s timetable. He analyzed the building envelopes, created profiles for each building and defined goals.
What mayor Andreas Bukowski (CSU) is pursuing for ambitious sustainability goals is well known in the community. It was not until the citizens’ meeting that he explained that technically it was already possible to build buildings that would even generate an increase in energy. According to the town hall, the new building of the Dino youth club is to be the next model building in Haar. Following Dankert’s lecture, Bukowski also addressed the congregation’s financially difficult situation. “We have to see what we can do.” The municipal councils are yet to receive the concept. Then a debate is planned on how to proceed.