Sustanaible buildings

From 2020 all new buildings will have to be NZEB (Nearly Zero Energy Building). With regard to stone buildings, we have studied the traditional bioclimatic solutions: thick white washed walls, small windows, and vaulted ceilings were all solutions to keep the inside warm in winter and keep the heat outside in the summer.  Thanks to the thickness of the stone walls, their inertia holds off the passage of the heat from the outside to the inside (inertia is the measure of how quickly or slowly an object gains or loses heat to the surrounding environment). This inertia is therefore able to delay the heat transfer and to lower the temperature, so that if the temperatures outside reach a maximum of 38 degrees at 3pm in the afternoon, the internal temperature will only rise to 28 degrees at 3am during the following night, 12 hours later. There are many factors that have to be considered to create an energy-efficient, low-rise residential building, such as density, thermal conductivity, thermal mass, air tightness, insulation, natural ventilation, attenuation and shading. In order to manage these concepts more effectively we have an ongoing approach to training, one step of which has been to obtain the qualification of Casaclima Energetic consultant.