Adherent tiling systems are widely used all over the world as wall cladding because of their aesthetic and technical characteristics. However, anomalous behaviours often occur; compromising the overall behaviour of facades, and possibly raising safety risks. The need to create expeditious, non-destructive and accurate methods of inspection that can encourage these systems' inspection and maintenance fomented a research study on infrared thermography's capacity of early detect anomalous zones in adhesive tiling systems, such as detachments or presence of humidity, in controlled in situ conditions, proving it as a valuable diagnostic tool.

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Evaporative 3 cooling is a traditional strategy to improve summer comfort, which has gained renewed relevance in the context of the 6 transition to a greener economy. Here, the potential for evaporative cooling of two common porous building materials, natural stone and 7 ceramic brick, was evaluated. The work has relevance also to the protection of built heritage becauseevaporation underlies the problems of 8 dampness and salt crystallization, which are so harmful and frequent in this heritage. It was observed that the drying rate of the materials is, in 9 some cases, higher than the evaporation rate of a free water surface. Surface area measurements by a three-dimensional optical technique 10 suggested, as probable cause of this behavior, that surface irregularity gives rise to a large effective surface of evaporation in the material. 11 Surface temperature measurements by infrared were performed afterward during evaporation experiments outside during a hot summer day in 12 Lisbon. Their results indicate that ordinary building materials can be very efficient evaporative media and, thus, may help in achieving higher 13 energy efficiency while maintaining a simultaneous constructive or architectural function.

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This study presents the results of a set of tests for the determination of the thermal conductivity coefficient of samples extracted from boards of Insulation Corkboard (ICB) withdrawn from the usual production of the seven portuguese factories. These tests were carried out as a part of an interlaboratorial study integrated in the standardization program for cork of the sub-comission 4 of The National Technical Committee of Standardization (CT 16), in which participated the Cork Technological Centre (CTCOR), the National Laboratory of Civil Enginneering (LNEC) and the National Institute of Engineering and Industrial Technology (INETI). The purpose of this study aimed to contribute to the definition of the "declared value" of this thermal property to be included in the future European Standard (EN) specifying the characteristics of ICB for thermal insulating of buildings which is in preparation in the 88 Th Technical Committee of The European Committee of Standardization CEN/TC-88 (CEN 1995). In view of the results, the declared value of thermal conductivity proposed was 0.045 W/m. °C.