Potential Results of Using Current Thermal Rehabilitation Techniques on a City Block of Timisoara and their Structural Strengthening Opportunities

Abstract

City blocks developed in settlements part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in Timisoara in particular, are still standing today and pose common rehabilitation problems related to energy efficiency and structural reinforcement. Moreover, many of the buildings are classified as monuments and are not compatible with current energy rehabilitation techniques. The paper explores possibilities of using techniques that would allow structural and thermal rehabilitation adapted to particularities of buildings external surfaces built during the 1800s. These techniques are in use today but have to be used and combined in a fashion that doesn't alter the characteristics of monuments and get maximum results. Using only one set of procedures would lead to losses in efficiency or would be damaging to the heritage aspect of the buildings. The analysis is done on a city block within the old walls of the fortress of Timisoara and ponders energy efficiency gains and structural reinforcement potential that could be derived from the intervention on buildings envelopes. The block is situated between the streets Janos Bolyai, Lucian Blaga, Carol Telbisz and the Ion C. Bratianu boulevard. It includes a church, two education buildings, a hotel as well as residential ones. Potential analysed interventions would be limited to surfaces situated on the thermal skins of the buildings (facades, windows, horizontal surfaces towards attic and underground cellar storage spaces). They would take advantage of the characteristics and levels of decoration used during the 1800s and 1900s to minimize the heat transfer while preserving the external look of the buildings towards streets and internal courtyards. Conclusions would be compared with results from a basic intervention with minimal or no energy efficiency goals.