Infrared thermovision technique for the assessment of thermal transmittance value of opaque building elements on site

Due to new regulations in the field of energy saving, international standards concerning energy requirements of buildings have been developed. In this field, during the design phase, one of the most important parameters to be considered is the value of heat losses coefficient through the envelope. Anyway, very often a great difference is experienced between predicted performance of building elements as calculated using the methods prescribed in technical standards, and the one considering as-build conditions, particularly in the field of building renovation where the envelope thermal transmittance value must be measured on site. Till now, the only method accepted by international standards is the heat flowmeter (HFM) that presents some restriction and some uncertainty in the results. In this study a faster and less invasive method is proposed, the infrared thermovision technique (ITT) whose full potentiality has never been investigated yet, in order to acquire quantitative data of real thermal transmittances of the building envelope in a quasi-steady state condition. The theoretic background is presented together with the application in three case studies. The results indicate that, following a specific methodology, it is possible to record significant data useful to perform a proper assessment of energy performance of existing buildings. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.