In recent years, energy efficiency and thermal comfort in historic buildings have become high-interest topics among scholars. Research has demonstrated that retrofitting buildings to current energy efficiency and thermal comfort standards is essential for improving sustainability and energy performance and for maintaining built heritage of historic structures. This study is an extensive overview of the literature surrounding this topic. This paper summarizes the different methods and techniques that have been used around the world to achieve performance refurbishments. Articles are organized based on the different building types used as case studies (residential, religious, academic and palace, museums, libraries and theaters, urban areas, and others). The results reveal that residential, religious and museum building types, especially from the last two centuries, have been most often used as case studies. Moreover, Europe, particularly Italy, is leading the research. The aim of this note is to demonstrate the feasibility of maintaining built heritage values of historic buildings while achieving significant improvements in their energy efficiency and thermal comfort.

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Energy efficiency and thermal comfort in historic buildings: A review

Energy retrofits have the potential to reduce building energy consumption and carbon emissions, but face particular challenges when implemented in historic and traditionally constructed buildings. Retrofitting these buildings is a complex balancing act, in which many criteria are balanced against one another in order to achieve continued, long-term use of the building. This article reviews the criteria, analysis methods, and decision-making processes used to assess energy retrofits in historic and traditional buildings. First, the criteria are discussed. While energy consumption and conservation are the dominant criteria, a number of others are also important, including the needs of the building fabric, occupants, and collections, as well as economics, embodied energy, and climate change. Second, several analysis methods for estimating or measuring retrofit performance have emerged as particularly useful for historic and traditional buildings, and these are examined. Third, recent efforts to develop consistent guidance and decision-making processes for selecting retrofits are reviewed. Overall, energy retrofits in these buildings are seen not only as a way to reduce energy consumption, but as a means of preserving them for future generations.

Energy retrofits in historic and traditional buildings: A review of problems and methods

Building dynamic simulation tools, traditionally used to study the hygrothermal performance of new buildings during the preliminary design steps, have been recently adopted also in historical buildings, as a tool to investigate possible strategies for their conservation and the suitability of energy retrofit scenarios, according to the boundary conditions. However, designers often face with the lack of reliable thermophysical input data for various envelope components as well as with some intrinsic limitations in the simulation models, especially to describe the geometric features and peculiarities of the heritage buildings. This paper attempts to bridge this knowledge gap, providing critical factors and possible solutions to support hygrothermal simulations of historical buildings. The information collected in the present work could be used by researchers, specialists and policy-makers involved in the conservation of building's heritage, who need to address a detailed study of the hygrothermal performance of historical buildings thorugh dynamic simulation tools.

Dynamic thermal and hygrometric simulation of historical buildings: Critical factors and possible solutions

Analysis of energy economic renovation for historic wooden apartment buildings in cold climates

Passive environment control system of Kerala vernacular residential architecture for a comfortable indoor environment: A qualitative and quantitative analyses

B.G. Royet

Papers

Field assessment of thermal behaviour of historical dwellings in France