Building part specific material inventory dataset for residential buildings in Finland

This dataset contains material volumes (m³), material masses (kg), and material intensities (kg/m²) for representative buildings from 53 residential building cohorts in Finland. These data are presented per material and in total, aggregated on four hierarchical levels on the correspondingly named sheets in the OpenDocument Spreadsheet (ODS) file: the entire building (data_building), distinguished between vertical building levels (data_building_level), distinguished between building parts (data_building part), and distinguished between further categories within some of those (data_building_subpart). Further details on the data are provided on the description sheet in the same file. The included diagram (material_inventory_dataset_structure.png) visualizes the structure of aggregation within the dataset and, correspondingly, the extent to which the data is subdivided on each sheet.

The cohorts are based on building type, main bearing material, main façade material, and construction decade. Each cohort is represented by one inventoried building, covering the combinations in the tables below. All buildings are located in the cities of Vantaa or Tampere, Finland, with the exception of the 1940s and 1950s houses, which are based on type-planned houses and thus have no specific location.

One dwelling house cohorts included in the dataset

Block of flats cohorts included in the dataset

D = Direct record based on construction documents.
T = Theoretical variant with alternative façade material based on typical contemporary construction practice. All properties except the cladding and any related materials (e.g. battens) are identical with the corresponding direct record (the record for the same decade with the directly recorded bearing material).
* Geometry determined based on construction documents from 1979 due to lack of suitably sized cases dated in the 1980s. Insulation thicknesses adjusted to match the represented decade’s building code.

The data are primarily based on digitized construction documents obtained from the Vantaa building inspection authority’s archives through the purchase portal Lupapiste Kauppa (https://kauppa.lupapiste.fi/). The 1940s and 1950s type-planned houses’ drawings are from the National Archives of Finland (https://astia.narc.fi/). The 1950s brick and concrete block of flats’ documents are from the Tampere building inspection authority’s archives.

Version notes since 1.0.0

1.0.3: 

• New data
  
  • New buildings
    
    • 1950s brick block of flats (BOF_B_1950_1, direct record).
      
      • 1950s concrete block of flats (BOF_CC_1950_1, direct record).
  • New materials
    
    • Sawdust brick (sahajauhotiili/hohkotiili). Distinguished from “regular” bricks, found in older buildings.
    • Stainless steel. Distinguished from “regular” steel in concrete facade outer layer reinforcements, sandwich panel trusses, and brick ties.
  • New calculation variables
    
    • Door and window material calculation definitions for 1940s–1950s blocks of flats (in previous versions the oldest blocks of flats were from the 1960s).
  • New building parts
    
    • Chimneys added to BOF records, in addition to them existing in ODH records (only affects added buildings, existing buildings in the dataset didn’t have chimneys). Unlike for ODHs, for BOFs chimneys are logged for each floor separately.
    • Balconies added to ODH records, in addition to them already existing in BOF records (does not currently affect any buildings, ODHs in the current version of the dataset don’t have balconies).
    • Roof covering and rest of the structure added as distinct building parts in both ODH and BOF records. Here “covering” includes the covering material (e.g. tiles) itself as well as covering specific battens. Everything else is logged under “structure” regardless of location, material or structural role.
  • New datasheet
    
    • The new sheet data_building_subpart describes the materials in certain building parts with finer granularity than data_building_part. The new sheet covers all existing and new buildings in the dataset. Currently this finer granularity is included for the following building parts:
      
      • exterior walls, where a distinction is made between bearing and non-bearing layers;
      • balconies, where a distinction is made between vertical bearing structures, slabs, and railings.
• Other changes
  
  • On the sheet data_building, values for bl_gfa and bl_tfa changed to #N/A, since these don’t apply at the level of an entire building (except practically speaking for single-storey buildings), where there’s no “level” to describe.
  • Loose mineral wool records’ accuracy improved. Previously, all loose / low density mineral wool was logged with a density of 60 kg/m³. Now there are two lower densities included: 30 kg/m³, insulation in exterior frame walls and non-bearing insulation in roofs; 15 kg/m³, insulation in interior walls. Similarly to polystyrene insulation, in the published dataset only the sum of these is presented.
  • Some balcony ceilings were previously logged under both “roof” and “balconies” for the top storey. They are now logged only under balconies for the top storey.
  • Roof sidewalls in BOFs moved to the category of exterior walls under the topmost "regular" storey. For ODHs this was already the case previously.
    ODH_WW_1940_1 renamed to ODH_W_1940_1 to conform to the naming scheme for massive structure buildings (see the sheet ‘description’, column header ‘b_id’).
  • Minor typo fixes and clarifications to descriptions on the ‘description’ sheet.
  • Explanations of asterisks moved from “data_” sheets to the “description” sheet to avoid those rows potentially getting mixed up with the actual data when using the sheets.
  •  

1.0.2: 

• Added wood facade variants to all one dwelling houses which have concrete as the bearing material.

1.0.1: 

• Changes to the terminology and some minor spelling corrections. The building data remain identical, as do their locations on the sheets.