Reducing energy consumption and the unintended consequences of energy efficient intervention in historic buildings

背景：较老的历史建筑通常被认为是能源匮乏的。可以说，情况恰恰相反。在工业革命之前，能源价格昂贵，很难开发。可接受的室内空气条件必须在供暖等“建筑服务”投入很少或没有投入的情况下提供。取而代之的是，巨大的墙壁和地板提供了免受外部条件影响的热缓冲；木质镶板等屏障阻止它们吸收居住者的身体热量。由于集中的能源供应鼓励了空间供暖和制冷等建筑服务的发展，这些以及许多其他舒适和节能功能-以及支撑这些功能的知识-在很大程度上消失了。温度计的引入完成了从建筑物用户对复杂不适来源的理解向强调气温的转变。目前为建筑环境推广的节能和碳节约措施以空气温度为中心，通过减少通风和增加建筑围护结构的隔热来减少空调空气的损失。这些改造可能会对传统的“大衣”建筑产生严重的负面影响，这些建筑依赖于与现代“雨衣”建筑非常不同的材料和系统来控制水分。适应不良会导致建筑结构失效，增加能源和碳的使用，以及严重的舒适和健康问题。气温是一个很容易测量的参数，但正如最近的研究表明的那样，舒适和不适要微妙得多。这个项目旨在扩大我们对热不适原因的理解，研究评估它的创新方法，并量化传统补救方法的好处(对使用者、建筑结构和环境)。目标-总结与当前热舒适标准相关的意外后果-确定对历史建筑热不适影响最大的具体因素-开发量化建筑用户不适感的创新方法-量化这些方法在历史建筑中减少能源和碳排放的好处，包括避免对建筑结构造成意外后果。研究假设1：参数包括空气流动(通风)、相对湿度、环境湿度、传导和辐射体热损失，与空气温度相比，用户活动对热舒适和不适的影响要大得多。2：传统的热不适管理方法可以显著降低空气供暖和冷却系统的压力，从而减少能源和碳的使用，而不会对建筑物的可用性或历史建筑结构产生负面影响。3：评估和处理热不适的真正原因的可靠方法可以帮助实现建筑物整个生命周期内能源和碳消耗的重要降低。

Background: Older historic buildings are often perceived as energy-hungry. The opposite is arguably the case. Until the Industrial Revolution, energy was expensive and difficult to exploit. Acceptable indoor air conditions had to be delivered with little or no input from "building services" such as heating. Instead, massive walls and floors provided thermal buffering from exterior conditions; barriers such as timber panelling prevented them drawing out the body heat of occupants. These and many other comfort and energy-saving features - and the knowledge underpinning them - were largely lost as centralised energy supplies encouraged the development of building services such as space heating and cooling. The introduction of thermometers completed a shift away from building users' understanding of complex sources of discomfort towards an emphasis on air temperature. The energy- and carbon-saving measures currently promoted for the built environment centre on air temperature, cutting the loss of conditioned air by reducing ventilation and increasing insulation of the building envelope. These retrofits can have serious negative impacts on traditionally constructed "greatcoat" buildings, which depend on very different materials and systems to control moisture from those used in modern "raincoat" construction. Maladaptation can lead to failure of the building fabric, increased use of energy and carbon, and serious comfort and health issues.Air temperature is an easy parameter to measure, but - as recent research has demonstrated - comfort and discomfort are considerably more subtle. This project aims to broaden our understanding of the causes of thermal discomfort, investigate innovative ways of assessing it, and quantify the benefits (for the user, the building fabric, and the environment) of traditional approaches to remediation.Aims - summarise the unintended consequences associated with current thermal-comfort criteria- identify the specific factors that most influence thermal discomfort in historic buildings- develop innovative methodologies for quantifying building user discomfort- quantify the benefits of these methodologies for energy and carbon reduction in historic buildings, including the avoidance of unintended consequences for the building fabric.Research hypotheses1: Parameters including air movement (draughtiness), relative humidity, ambient humidity, conductive and radiant body heat loss, and user activity play a much more important role in thermal comfort and discomfort than air temperature.2: Traditional ways of managing thermal discomfort can significantly reduce the pressure on air heating and cooling systems, allowing a reduction in energy and carbon use without negative impacts on building usability or historic building fabric.3: Robust ways of assessing and dealing with the real causes of thermal discomfort could help achieve important through-life reductions in the consumption of energy and carbon in buildings.