Materials used for the construction of the roof of a building are popularly known as roofing materials. The roofing material used is based on the geographical conditions, the nature of the building, and end-user preferences. Based on product type, roofing materials can be classified as shingle, tiles, metal roofing, green roofing, and solar shingle roofing.

Coatings are products used to protect a surface and/or enhance its appearance. Architectural coatings are applied to commercial and residential buildings. They protect a building from elements such as moisture, UV radiation, and microbes. Paints, primers, lacquers, varnishes, and stains are some of the major types of architectural coating products. These products are formulated using various types of resins such as acrylic, alkyds, polyester, and polyurethane. The market may be broadly classified by the two major types of coating technologies into solventborne and water-borne coatings.

Zero-energy buildings consume only as much energy as they generate within a year. They are the next target for green building construction and modification over the next several years. Green building practices have become more common in the global construction industry. The aim is to utilize only as much energy as buildings produce onsite through renewable energy systems.

TIM are used to support heat sinks in removing heat from heat sources in various types of equipment. They are used in the form of secondary thermally conductive materials to replace the thermally insulating air between two surfaces. Besides helping in the efficient transfer of heat, TIM also act as adhesives and strengthen the mechanical link between surfaces. Polymer-based TIM are the most commonly used TIM and owing to their superior conductive and adhesive properties, find extensive usage for thermal management applications in various industries, including computer, electrical and electronics, telecom, and automotive.

The purpose of this project was to follow up on a Building America (BA) retrofit project to determine the actual savings. In addition, this project provided a perfect opportunity to look at the use of the Building Energy Optimization Program (BEopt) as it applies to multifamily retrofits. BEopt is a tool that is used by the BA Program to determine cost optimized packages in both new and retrofit construction. It also provides a consistent way to compare one BA project from another in various climate regions. BEopt was not originally built for multifamily, nor for retrofit projects. However, when Vice President Biden announced Recovery through Retrofit in 2009, BA took on the challenge of existing homes. BEopt was one component of the BA Program that added retrofits into its repertoire and has been continually improved since then.

A key success factor for the IoT adoption in Smart Buildings is to provide a loosely-coupled Web protocol stack allowing interoperation between all devices present in a building. We review in this chapter different strategies that are going in this direction. More specifically, we emphasise on several aspects issued from pervasive and ubiquitous computing like service discovery. Finally, making the assumption of seamless access to sensor data through IoT paradigms, we provide an overview of some of the most exciting enabling applications that rely on intelligent data analysis and machine learning for energy saving in buildings.

As most of the time people develop their daily activities inside buildings this energy saving cannot be obtained by putting users' welfare to risk, since their productivity is directly related to their comfort. Thus, it is necessary to look for a tradeoff between users' comfort and energy saving. In order to achieve this compromise, the construction of bioclimatic buildings which incorporate passive strategies and make use of renewable energies is one of the most applied approaches. Nevertheless, in some cases, and mainly due to the typical climate of the place where the building is located, it may be insufficient. In these cases, it is required, together with innovations in structural designs, to perform specific control actions on HVAC systems and other building's actuators, oriented to provide comfortable environments from thermal, visual and indoor air quality points of view, and with the minimum energy consumption.

This is a meeting overview of 'The Best Approach to Combustion Safety in a Direct Vent World', held June 28, 2012, in San Antonio, Texas. The objective of this Expert Meeting was to identify gaps and barriers that need to be addressed by future research, and to develop data-driven technical recommendations for code updates so that a common approach for combustion safety can be adopted by all members of the building energy efficiency and code communities. The DOE BA program focuses on reducing energy consumption in the nation's housing stock through smart integration of energy efficient design and upgrades. The target is 30%-50% energy savings captured through the application of many measures, including reduction in air infiltration, equipment upgrades, smart controls, and thermal envelope improvements.