The influence of insulation on the passive discomfort index of dwellings located in historical buildings with intermittent heating patterns

Abstract

There is a great potential for comfort improvement and energy refurbishment in residential built heritage. Those dwellings present sometimes very poor thermal comfort conditions, with direct consequences in its habitant's health. The Energy Certification Schemes (ECS) represents the most powerful tool to improve the energy efficiency of the European building stock, specially designed for permanent heating habits and for new buildings. Although, some studies show that the introduction of traditional improvement measures indicated on Energy Certificates (EC), as high insulation thicknesses, may not always have the high expected benefit, concerning Mediterranean climates, where the most common practice is intermittent heating on winter. Also, energy poverty phenomena explain low heating habits in these countries, which is different from the regulation assumption of permanent heating in space and time. A sensitivity study was carried out for two climates of southern Europe, using a historical building, previously validated in a monitoring campaign. The consequences of placing insulation in facades were evaluated in terms of discomfort hours and energy consumption, for a low intermittent heating scenario and free-floating temperatures, for different orientations. The results confirm the need to reflect if the ECS is the best approach to evaluate the thermal performance of these type of buildings, in a moderate climate with low heating consumptions. (c) 2020, University of Cantabria - Building Technology R&D Group. All rights reserved.