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Properties of building materials include many properties, the most important are mechanical, thermal, chemical, and economic. The most important thermal properties that characterize the total heat losses and thermal inertia of materials are thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity. The first one describes the stationary heat transfer through the structures, but the second describes the ability to absorb and release the heat energy with temperature change dynamically, and it is related to a unit mass of the ...

Avoiding thermal bridges in the building envelope is one of the key elements for the reduction of energy consumption in buildings. Numerical calculations of heat flux through the joints of building structures are becoming very relevant in the past years due to the EU requirements for nearly zero energy buildings. The most problematic typically is windows installation perimeter, where thanks to fastenings of the frame to the loadbearing structure, linear thermal bridge forms. The use of numerical calculation of tem...

Polycrystalline photovoltaic (PV) panels of various orientations were installed in Riga, Latvia, for long-term monitoring and determination of the efficiency in real operation conditions depending on the environmental parameters. Results of the first couple of years of monitoring are summarised in this paper. Analysis of the available energy and environmental data allows for the quantitative estimation of actual efficiency depending on spatial orientation and following comparison with manufacturer?s values. The cl...

The aim of this research is to analyse the thermal properties of different non-traditional insulation materials with low thermal conductivity and light weight that are made from Latvian local raw materials and are ?green? or are innovative and advanced materials. The studied materials are grouped depending on the production type and possible applications as follows: ? multi-layer combination of insulation materials, incl. low-emission surfaces; ? straw, cane, hemp, and birch wood fibreboard made from local raw mat...

The calculated energy efficiency and specified physical properties of building materials may change significantly during the initial years of a buildingпїЅs operation under real climatic conditions. Five small test buildings with different wall assemblies were built in Riga, Latvia to compare different building construction characteristics under Latvian climate conditions. The heating energy consumption, thermal transmittance, air relative humidity and other important energy efficiency and environmental parameters...