1,721,013 research outputs found
Historic Climate in Heritage Building and Standard 15757: Proposal for a Common Nomenclature
No full textResearch on the relationship between microclimate and heritage buildings or historic buildings has increased dramatically in the last few decades. Research has focused on indoor climate or indoor microclimate or the environment or micro-environment, and the field of these studies regards several variables, physical—air temperature, air speed, relative humidity—or chemical, dust, CO2, pollution, etc., all of which can have an effect or damage buildings or artifacts inside buildings. Moreover, all these variables should be monitored in a monitoring campaign following the standard EN 15757; in spite of this, scientific literature contains mistakes with regard to the words and objects of study. In this short contribution, the author proposes a common nomenclature in the research field of climate and microclimate in heritage buildings and heritage artifacts. A new nomenclature should be useful for the community of heritage scientists working on preventive measures to distinguish between climate and environment, or the object of study, e.g., the room (wall, wood structure, fresco, etc.) where the artifacts are or the air around them (painting, canvas, statue, piece of furniture, documents, books, etc.)
Thermal comfort evaluation in kindergarten: PMV and PPD measurement through datalogger and questionnaire
No full textIn this research we present the results of a study about thermal comfort measurement and evaluation in kindergartens for children of 4 and 5 years of age.The overall study objective is to compare (1) indoor microclimate parameters, measured with a Datalogger following EN ISO 7730, and (2) children's subjective judgment, collected through a questionnaire following EN ISO 10551. Since we interviewed pre-scholar children, we needed to modify the questionnaire based on a psycho-pedagogical approach. School educators helped us change the questionnaire according to the pedagogical approach of the kindergarten ("Loris Malaguzzi" pedagogical model). This particular approach allowed us to verify how children understand concepts like temperature or heat sensation. The results show that children are sensible to these well-being issues, even if they express their opinion according to specific world models.The comparison between Datalogger instrumental data and questionnaire highlighted the need to enlarge the concept of comfort, taking into account different subject categories (children, young people, elderly people, infirm, etc.). This analysis shows that children understand the concept of comfort and can define their perceived and preferred thermal comfort level. Moreover, we verified that the PMV of children is slightly higher in respect to adults. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd
Urban energy poverty
No full textUrban Fuel Poverty describes key approaches to defining and alleviating fuel poverty in cities using a multidisciplinary perspective and multiple case studies. It provides empirical knowledge on the levels and intensities of energy poverty in urban areas, along with new theoretical perspectives in conceptualizing the multidimensionality of energy poverty, with special focus given to the urban environment. Chapters discuss what energy poverty is in terms of taxonomy, stakeholders and affected parties, addressing the role of the economy and energy bills, the role of climate and city factors, the role of buildings, and the health and psychological impact on fuel poverty.
The book addresses how to measure energy poverty, how to map it, and how to draw conclusions based on illness and social indicators. Finally, it explores measures to ‘fight’ fuel poverty, including policy and governance actions, building efficiency improvements and city planning
Energy incidence of historic building: Leaving no stone unturned
No full textEnergy and sustainability are a hard challenge in building heritage, both the technical solutions in order to solve impact of energy conservation and aspect of conservation and maintenance of architectural heritage, and also the bigger target: sustainable development of human activity. The first issue is quantitative and measurable. The second issue is qualitative: what does sustainability of historic building mean? In some way historic building are the building that was preserved by past generation, which spend more economic and social resources, in order to maintain the ability of future generations to meet it. The energy saving in historic building is a " new challenger" of research, but this may not able be a priority in order to sustainable development aims, if they are not to be subject to preservation of historic building. © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS
How to use online surveys to understand human behaviour concerning window opening in terms of building energy performance
No full textUninhabited buildings do not require energy; therefore building energy consumption depends on user habits and domestic appliance equipment. Naturally, building energy performance (BEP) also depends on geometrical, thermophysical and heating, ventilating and air conditioning characteristics, but in this paper, we would like to focus on human behaviour. The European Union energy policy, for example, energy labelling approach or Directive energy performance building directive (EPBD) and EPBD II, adopts labelling strategies to change user choice; the aim of labelling is to improve energy user awareness. Building energy simulation software and Building Standards to evaluate BEP (e.g. European committee for standardization Umbrella) adopt some values from scientific literature, for example, domestic appliance, people presence. The ventilation rate depends on geometry; climate but also they have a main dependence on user and human behaviour. In the present paper, we report on human behaviour studied via a survey questionnaire. The goals of the paper are to estimate whether an online survey questionnaire could be used to understand user behaviour and ventilation rate values. In other words, we would like to know whether an online questionnaire could be used instead of monitoring or questionnaire interviews. Results show that if the questions are simple and basic, the results could be compared with other questionnaire methods
Urban fuel poverty
No full textUrban Fuel Poverty describes key approaches to defining and alleviating fuel poverty in cities using a multidisciplinary perspective and multiple case studies. It provides empirical knowledge on the levels and intensities of energy poverty in urban areas, along with new theoretical perspectives in conceptualizing the multidimensionality of energy poverty, with special focus given to the urban environment. Chapters discuss what energy poverty is in terms of taxonomy, stakeholders and affected parties, addressing the role of the economy and energy bills, the role of climate and city factors, the role of buildings, and the health and psychological impact on fuel poverty. The book addresses how to measure energy poverty, how to map it, and how to draw conclusions based on illness and social indicators. Finally, it explores measures to ‘fight’ fuel poverty, including policy and governance actions, building efficiency improvements and city planning
Indoor thermal comfort perception: A questionnaire approach focusing on children
No full textProviding a methodology for evaluating indoor thermal comfort with a focus on children, this book presents an in-depth examination of children's perceptions of comfort. Divided into two sections, it first presents a history of thermal comfort, the human body and environmental parameters, common thermal comfort indexes, and guidelines for creating questionnaires to assess children's perceptions of indoor thermal comfort. It then describes their understanding of the concepts of comfort and energy, and the factors that influence that perception. In this context, it takes into account the psychological and pedagogical aspects of thermal comfort judgment, as well as architectural and environmental characteristics and equips readers with the knowledge needed to effectively investigate children's perspectives on environmental ergonomics. The research field of indoor thermal comfort adopts, on the one hand, physical parameter measurements and comfort indexes (e.g. Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) or adaptive comfort), and on the other, an ergonomic assessment in the form of questionnaires. However the latter can offer only limited insights into the issue of comfort, as children often use different terms than adults to convey their experience of thermal comfort. The books aims to address this lack of understanding with regard to children's perceptions of indoor thermal comfort. The book is intended for HVAC engineers and researchers, architects and researchers interested in thermal comfort and the built environment. It also provides a useful resource for environmental psychologists, medical and cognitive researchers
Building and fuel poverty, an index to measure fuel poverty: An Italian case study
No full textFuel Poverty is a big challenge for everybody: politicians, decision-makers, technicians, researchers, etc. In Italy, a strategy to solve fuel poverty involves action in order to reduce energy prices, the AEEG (Italian regulatory authority for electricity gas and water) has defined an Assist Tariff for poor people. Fuel poverty depends on family income and energy prices. Building energy performance also influences required energy consumption, and is a contributing cause of fuel poverty. Subsequently, it is possible to introduce a new Fuel Poverty risk Index, correlated to Building Energy Performance: the Building Fuel Poverty index. The Building Fuel Poverty Index (BFP) allows us to quantify how many buildings need direct action and/or just economic incentives.The index should be adopted in order to identify subjects that can afford to pay building energy refurbishment. The paper proposes an index in order to evaluate fuel poverty condition correlated to building energy performance
Building Physics and Thermophysical Performance
No full textThe evaluation of the performance of the building is part of the various phases of the design and construction processes. The verification of the compliance with the regulatory parameters or with the certification protocols, such as the Passive House certification—an activity that is present in every design phase—is one that, by means of the continuous interaction between form-technology-calculations-choice and so forth, leads to the achievement of the objectives. The architecture of the twenty-first century requires that, in the design of buildings, and as seen in the previous chapters, it is necessary to take into account several thermophysical parameters, Building Physics and Building Energy Performance. This chapter contains a description of the main thermophysical characteristics of the building envelope, with the aim of clarifying for the designer the physics meaning of the terms used in order to understand their relationship with architectural and technological choices
Planning a Regional Energy System in Association with the Creation of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), Statistical Analysis and Energy Efficiency Measures: An Italian Case Study
No full textDirective 2002/91/EC EPBD introduced the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) as a tool to guide the real estate market in the creation of products (buildings) with improved energy performances. The EPC’s information could be useful in the determination of relevant policies and also in studying the characteristics of the building resources of the territory. This paper presents a case study related to the EPC Database of the Emilia-Romagna Region in mid-northern Italy. The case study shows a way of elaborating the EPC information in statistical analysis evaluations with aggregate data, in order to measure a territory and then direct energy policies toward energy efficiency. A statistical approach was used to define a characteristic statistical indicator index of the EPC database, and compare the energy index with the bottom-up and top-down methods, in order to identify some energy policy scenarios
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