When listed buildings are to be insulated this may only be done on the inner side of the wall, which may lead to damages if humidity occurs during winter time, since the wall is then "on the cold side".

For that reason, during the monitoring special attention will be given to the hygrothermal behaviour. The latter describes the transport and storage of humidity within the rooms and the buildings components and the occurring temperatures .

Another major point of interest of the monitoring is the behavior of the energy systems, consisting of a pellet boiler and a compact ventilation system with heat recovery and geothermal preheater, both of which can still be considered as innovative technologies.

Fig.1 - 2 The building in the 1920's and after refurbishment

The main objectives of the projects can be described as follows:

• the gathering of scientifically relevant measured data of a model example for energy refurbishment of a historical building. The data will be made available by EURAC for all project partners.
• a comparison between design values and measured data shall allow the verification of planning tools and possibly provide information basis for the improvement of the latter and applied technologies.
• the well documented model object and the possible obtained lessons shall allow educational measures to be conducted by EURAC and project partners.

Fig. 3 Sensor of humidity and temperature before vapor barrier and section of the building with placement of insulation

Amongst others the following tasks will be conducted during the project enabling the realization of the specified objectives:

• the monitoring of the energy system by means of a comprehensive monitoring including heat flow counters,  temperature- and humidity sensors.
• the monitoring system designed, installed and run by EURAC
• the monitoring of the hygrothermal behaviour of different insulation solutions of the building in general and of special points of interest. For the monitoring of the hygrothermal behaviour a separate specialized monitoring system was designed and installed by EURAC.
• the conduction of simulations with specialized software in order to gain a more detailed understanding of the hygrothermal behaviour.
  

Our partners in the project are

http://www.benedikter.biz

http://www.ecoistituto.it