Mounting of sensors on surfaces in historic buildings

Museums are often housed in historic buildings or sometimes-also the building itself is part of the exhibition, like open-air museums. In heritage buildings, it can be necessary to monitor the hygrothermal behavior of building components and the indoor climate for conservation purposes or for energetic refurbishment. When measuring heat flow and surface temperature, direct contact between sensor and surface must be ensured reliably over the entire measurement period. These installations are usually performed by technicians and not by conservators. Conventional installation procedures cannot be carried out without damages to sensitive original surfaces when the sensors are removed later. The aim of this cooperation between building physicists and conservators is to develop a system, where neither substance losses occur nor unwanted residues with unknown aging behavior remain after dismantling the installation and which does not affect the measurement results significantly. For this purpose new mounting systems for surface sensors and other technical installations have been developed, tested and applied. Test measurements were carried out to assess uncertainties of the different reversible mounting systems in comparison to conventional methods. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.