Evaluation of natural-based internal insulation systems in historic buildings through a holistic approach

Dario Bottino-Leone, Marco Larcher, Daniel Herrera-Avellanosa, Franziska Haas and Alexandra Troi

Energy, 2019, vol. 181, issue C, 521-531

Abstract: Historic buildings are defining elements of city centres but also responsible for a large share of greenhouse gas emissions. In order to reduce their energy demand, it is important to improve envelopes’ thermal transmittance without damaging the historic integrity of their façades by applying interior insulation. Thus, a detailed planning is needed to guarantee that case-specific variables are well considered. In this study, a holistic performance-based evaluation method is developed. Firstly, the hygrothermal risks are investigated through dynamic hygrothermal simulation. Secondly, an energy assessment is performed, followed by a life-cycle assessment to investigate the environmental impact of the intervention. The developed method is applied in the framework of a conservation and rehabilitation case of a residential building, to evaluate six natural-based insulation systems: perlite filled bricks, wood fibre, cellulose, cork, mineral foam, and calcium silicate. Results show that vegetal-based materials have the lowest initial environmental impact. In any case, retrofit interventions proved to be crucial to reduce the overall environmental impact associated with the use of historic buildings. The developed method, proving to be suitable for application to internally insulated historic buildings, supports a clear identification of the design solution with the lowest environmental impact by using a unique indicator.

Keywords: Historic buildings; Interior insulation; Hygrothermal assessment; Energy assessment; Life-cycle assessment; Natural materials (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544219310217
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:181:y:2019:i:c:p:521-531

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2019.05.139

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().