Abstract
The aim of our present research is to investigate possible solutions for the achievement of indoor comfort with the absence of any draft risks in the occupied zones of Cultural Heritage school building. A simple method for sustainable, reversible, and easily maintainable operations on the plant system, oriented to indoor comfort improvement and possible building-plant system refurbishment, is provided. It is based on thermal comfort assessment at an early design stage, carried out by dynamic simulation and CFD techniques. It helps to identify major ineffective equipment in historical school buildings, and potential sustainable, noninvasive, reversible, and conservative measures. Results obtained by a simulation exercise of a historical school building, a check case study, showed that the evaluation of thermal comfort conditions can be a strong guideline for reversible plant design. This guarantees building protection and preventive conservation. Refurbishment and retrofitting solutions, with a lower impact can be identified. Thus in depth assessment of the building physics and plant performance aiming at energy efficacy and sustainability, can contribute to finding out the balance between energy saving, sustainability, and quality of life. Our method can be a useful tool for effectiveness analysis on retrofit and refurbishment measures for similar case studies.
Highlights
Energy efficiency has become a common target for buildings and plant systems: European Directives point out that new buildings must consume less and less fossil energy and reach the nZEB goal by 2020 [1,2,3]
The aim of our present research is to investigate possible solutions for the achievement of indoor comfort with the absence of any draft risks in the occupied zones of Cultural Heritage school building
Results published with the European HESE study (Health Effects of School Environment [6]) of the World Health Organization (WHO) involving 21 European schools with constant monitoring of respiratory health of over 600 Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, French, and Danish students, showed that indoor air quality (IAQ) in the classrooms was poor with respiratory health effects
Summary
Energy efficiency has become a common target for buildings and plant systems: European Directives point out that new buildings must consume less and less fossil energy and reach the nZEB goal by 2020 [1,2,3]. The wider project, SINPHONIE [8], involved 114 schools distributed in 23 European countries with over 5000 children involved and reached the conclusion that 85% of students are exposed to fine particles in concentrations well above the values per cubic meter established by the WHO as the danger threshold. This situation does not improve for other pollutants such as radon, benzene, formaldehyde, and carbon dioxide, all found in quantities that, even in this case, come to exceed the parameters expected in 25% of cases for benzene and in 50% of cases for radon
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