Optimization of clay roofing tiles to improve the energy efficiency of buildings

On 22 June, in Nice, within the framework of the Annual Congress of Tiles and Bricks Europe (TBE), the Mid-Term Conference of Life Herotile was held, during which the partners of this project presented the progress of the project to the members of TBE and other stakeholders.

Project goal

Life Herotile (High Energy savings in building cooling by ROof TILEs shape optimization toward a better above sheathing ventilation - LIFE14 CCA/IT/000939) is a European research project co-financed by the European Commission with 1.5 mill. euros that started in August 2015 and will last until 2018.

Goal of the project is to facilitate the development and implementation of energy savings approaches, mainly in the Mediterranean Region, thus contributing to climate change mitigation with technologies and systems suitable for being replicated, transferred and mainstreamed.

In climates with high temperatures, reducing the cooling consumption and increasing the standards of indoor comfort are topics of great importance. The roof plays a key role in controlling the indoor thermal comfort, due to its size in comparison with the other components of a building envelope and the direct exposure to solar radiation. The arrangement of the covering elements on a battens and counter-battens system allows the creation of a ventilation layer under the tiles in the tiled pitched roof. This so-called Above Sheathing Ventilation (ASV) helps to dissipate the excess heat during the summer, reducing the heat transfer between tiles and roof structure below, thereby also reducing the cooling energy requirement. In ventilated roofs, air flow within the ASV depends on the air entering and leaving at the eaves and the ridge, according to external wind conditions. Therefore, the benefits of ASV could be enhanced by increasing the roof air permeability by means of novel tile shapes. That is the main idea of the Life Herotile European project.

Great interest in the project

The mid-term conference was introduced by Renaud Batier, Director General at Cerame -Unie. Then, Mario Cunial, Industrie Cotto Possagno; Christian Pohl, Monier, along with Fernando Cuogo, Terreal Italia Srl – all representatives of the three industrial partners – presented the current project status.

In the second part of the conference there was a discussion with the representatives of two organizations that could benefit from the best practices developed by Life Herotile: Promotoit Europe, an association with the mission to promote the advantages of the pitched roofs, represented by the President Pierre Jonnard, also the President of the Fédération Française des Tuiles et Briques (FFTB), and Housing Europe, the European Federation of Public, Cooperative and Social Housing, represented by Marco Corradi, who also intervened in the conference as one of the partners, with ACER Reggio Emilia, the company that manages social housing in Reggio Emilia. Isabelle Dorgeret, FFTB Director General, also participated in the discussion with a presentation on the main benefits of pitched roofs.

Around 40 people attended the conference showing great interest in the innovative tiles developed by the project that enable improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings thanks to the enhanced above sheathing ventilation.

More information on the project is available at: www.lifeherotile.eu

Source Ziegelindustrie International