Infrared Screening of Residential Buildings for Energy Audit Purposes: Results of a Field Test

Giuliano Dall'O', Luca Sarto and Angela Panza
Additional contact information
Giuliano Dall'O': Architecture, Building Environment and Construction Engineering (A.B.C.) Department, Polytechnic of Milan, Via E. Bonardi 9, 10133 Milano, Italy
Luca Sarto: Architecture, Building Environment and Construction Engineering (A.B.C.) Department, Polytechnic of Milan, Via E. Bonardi 9, 10133 Milano, Italy
Angela Panza: Architecture, Building Environment and Construction Engineering (A.B.C.) Department, Polytechnic of Milan, Via E. Bonardi 9, 10133 Milano, Italy

Energies, 2013, vol. 6, issue 8, 1-20

Abstract: In the European Union (EU), the building sector is responsible for approximately 40% of total energy consumption. The existing building stock is inefficient and can, and indeed must be retrofitted to address this issue. The practical implementation of the European strategies requires knowledge of the energy performance of existing buildings through energy audit techniques. Application of thermography in the fields of energy are very widespread, since, through such a non-invasive investigation, and through correct interpretation of infrared images, it is possible to highlight inefficiencies in buildings and related facilities. The paper shows and discusses the results of an infrared audit campaign on 14 existing buildings located in Milan Province (Italy) made in different construction periods and characterised, therefore, by different building technologies. The U-values obtained in an indirect way through the thermography of the opaque walls of the buildings investigated, were compared with the actual known values in order to verify the reliability of the method and the possible margin of error. The study indicated that the category of buildings in which the application of this method is sufficiently reliable is that of solid-mass structure buildings, the most widespread in Italy, whereas in the case of buildings whose external walls are insulated, the percentage of deviation is very high.

Keywords: energy efficiency; infrared screening; thermography applications; energy audit of buildings; U-value measure; infrared audit; convective heat transfer coefficient (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/6/8/3859/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/6/8/3859/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:6:y:2013:i:8:p:3859-3878:d:27599

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().