Churches, chapels and other places of worship are a major part of European cultural heritage which modern society has decided should be preserved for future generations. The indoor environment of these buildings crucial to conserving construction elements and movable artefacts. This is part of an ecosystem, where the factors in the physical environment, the buildings, the living organisms and the human action are profoundly connected.
The construction of these buildings is one of its special features (building techniques ancient) because these were not designed as houses or workspaces, besides the occasional use and the vulnerability of its surface decoration.
Originally, most of religious historic buildings have been used for centuries as cold churches. Yet now, the increasing demand for thermal comfort and preservation of cultural heritage has made air-conditioning systems quite common. These systems generate a climatic condition totally different from the natural, unheated climate to which artwork have become acclimatized, and in most cases, this large difference in levels of climatic factors and in their variability is not tolerable, so a balance must be struck.
Most of these buildings are been converted to improve comfort, but failed. So, to work in these issues, it is necessary to work in these places so that we reduce their negative impact in the preservation and the environment.
At present, the context in Europe is that a minimum requirement can be applied or not. Consequently, this building sector is free from fulfilling the energy requirements and European Directives of energy efficient. Most of the experts in the field think this type of building cannot be left out of the energy adequacy.
On the other hand, there is a huge gap of requirements in this area, which has led those different experts develop some the letters for restoration of the historic monuments.
Sometimes, these letters cause problems in the energy efficient renovation of these buildings, because new construction materials cannot be used or the building skin cannot be changed. The building skin plays a major role in thermal insulation, so if we cannot change it, active environment techniques are used for improving thermal comfort and preservation of works of art.
When active techniques are applied in historic buildings, the energy consumption is high due to the large size and thermal inertia.
In tackling all these challenges, a method has to be developed to control thermal comfort and conservation of cultural heritage.
The main aim of this research is to describe different environmental techniques to improve the thermal comfort conditions of the faithful while preserving the cultural heritage of these buildings
In the churches the indoor climate was monitored during a long period and the preservation conditions of the indoor climate in the collection and the monumental building and thermal comfort were evaluated.
The methodology used assesses the application of passive and active environmental techniques in historic churches in Mediterranean climates and includes monitoring techniques and uses simulation tools.