Climate has a major impact on the thermal comfort and energy consumption in the buildings. Traditional buildings have been a good example of responding to the local climates, which were the results of centuries of materials construction techniques and climate considerations that achieved through a trial-and error process. In current buildings, some technologies and building materials used were inverted from western countries without careful consideration for the local climates in the region. In addition, most of the new building envelopes made of a thin layer of high thermal mass, such as cement block, which include no overhang or any shading devices, resulting in easy solar radiation penetration into inside the building. As a result, buildings were very hot without the assistance of an air-conditioner; this caused an excessive energy consumption of the built environment.

The building sector is known to be the largest energy consumer, based on the analysis of previous studies, the residential building is the first largest energy consumer. In Sulaimani governorate, the consequences of high energy consumption in residential sectors are becoming a major concern. According to the annual report of the Ministry of Electricity and Energy in Kurdistan Region of Iraq in 2014, the residential buildings consumed 70% of the total energy consumption. One of the best opportunities to improve the energy and thermal comfort performance in the existing buildings can be attained through the renovation of buildings in a sustainable manner. Thus, the main goal of