The addition of insulating layers on vertical walls of buildings is a common practice for providing 10 a higher thermal insulation of the envelope. Workmanship defects, however, might influence the 11 effectiveness of such insulation strategy. Damaged materials, incorrect installation, use of aged or weathered 12 materials might alter the capability of reducing heat transfer through the envelope, whether vertical or 13 sloped. In this work, drawbacks caused by the wrong installation of insulating material and by damaged 14 material are assessed. A specimen wall was investigated by experimental and numerical approaches, the 15 latter carried out by using COMSOL Multiphysics®. Results are compared and discussed. 16
17A key role in this scenario is played by the renovation and refurbishment of the built environment [7, 8]. 27Such interventions represent the main opportunity of energy efficiency for urban context that, due to energy 28 policies or to reasons of force majeure, face the challenge of building renovation. The latter is the case of the 29 city of L'Aquila, in central Italy, that in 2009 was hit by a violent earthquake; most of buildings (both private 30 and public) has undergone (or is still undergoing) reconstruction or renovation [9, 10]. The natural disaster, 31 therefore, has given the opportunity to intervene on several buildings and to improve the energy efficiency. 32In this sense, the most rapid and common adopted strategy is the addition of insulating layer (the so called 33 ETICS that stands for External Thermal Insulation Composite System). The effectiveness of this solution 34 depends not only on the quality of employed materials, but also on how workmen laid the materials. Each 35 error, damage or omission that occurs during the construction phase might increase the energy performance 36 gap, that is, the difference between predicted and measured energy performance. 37Several works deal with defects taxonomy, aiming at providing a definition of "defects" and a possible 38 classification, the phase of occurrence (project, construction or management phase), their major causes and 39 the influences on building thermal performance [11][12][13][14]. Several kinds of defects are accounted [13], like 40 detachments, incorrect installation, discontinuities, gaps and thermal bridging. Incorrect installation is one of 41 the most frequent workmanship defects [14]. Obviously, defects can worsen the capabilities and features of 42 the assets on which occur, and quality defects (like those mentioned before) can impact buildings thermal 43 performance, causing local increase of thermal losses, and leading to higher energy consumption 44An aid for a better evaluation of building features is provided by software and tools [15][16][17]. The possibility 45 of investigating building elements by using simulation and computer tools is widening the study of new 46 materials and solutions for the realization or renovation of the built environment. In this sense, calculation 47 codes can reproduce or simulate buildi...
