Energy Efficiency Upgrade & Conservation – the Marsico Palace in Pignola (PZ) becomes nZEB

In Italy, the existing ancient buildings have full walls made by stones or bricks. For this reason, in order to upgrading the thermal performance of the walls, it is impossible to operate in the existing thickness, and the insulation must be applied from the inside or the outside. It is known that internal insulation, in its different variants (with vapor barrier or "with open diffusion"), is not applicable to damp walls or wet sites, exposed to beating rain or with rising damp problems. In fact, very often, the internal insulation causes more problems than it solves (for example: thermal shocks, with consequent crevices, in correspondence with connections between vaults/floors/supporting walls and outer walls, very dangerous in seismic zones; thermal bridges); a good resolution for internal insulation problems is very expensive, much more than someone might think based on the cost of the square meter of the insulating material. Instead, the external insulating, guarantee greater efficiency of the thermal insulation (through the elimination of thermal bridges), greater water-tightness, rise of durability of the structure lying below. Nevertheless, it has a defect: it looks like incompatible with conservation of the architectural elements of fa-çades (window sills and jambs, balconies and cornices in dressed stone). In the project of conservation of Marsico Palace in Pignola (PZ) has been proposed external insulation, which allows the building become a nZEB, foreseeing the cutting of such decorative and functional elements, the setting of insulating layer, and their place again in the same old position with the exterior surface of wall. In this way, both the matter, or the meaning of the work are preserved (MARCONI, 1999), allowing buildings to last long, and suggesting an intervention model applicable to all similar cases.