Urban green reform of existing residential buildings is an important way to achieve totals, the control of energy consumption, the reduction target of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP, and the target of green building construction. In this paper, study the existing residential buildings in cold region cities and towns, research the building basic information, household behavior, indoor thermal environment and family composition. To get the basic conditions of living buildings in the cold regions, and the factors that affects the energy consumption. Meanwhile, the paper also uses the way that simulates the annual energy consumption of existing residential buildings, get the factors of existing residential building that affects the energy consumption in cold regions, so as to provide the green transformation of the existing residential building. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.