Field assessment of thermal behaviour of historical dwellings in France

In many countries, there is a great number of old buildings with local architectural, patrimonial, aesthetic and historic interest. They are the products of the vernacular traditional architecture fully integrating the environmental, social and economic local constraints. Moreover, this built inheritance is more heterogeneous than the modern stock of existing buildings. The historical buildings were built with different architectural designs featuring local styles of construction, different techniques and historical expertise. By experience, the actors of the building sector know that the thermal behaviour of historical buildings are not those of modern buildings set up at the time of the industrial period. However, they do not have assessed these specific thermal characteristics of historical buildings. This paper describes the complexity of architectural designs of historical dwellings in France. A field investigation during one year highlights various thermal characteristics of 11 dwellings. It provides a new understanding of thermal behaviour of these historical dwellings. The results show the thermal characteristics of historical dwellings and their differences with modern architecture.