This guidance note provides advice on the principles, risks, materials and methods for improving the thermal performance of buildings built with early forms of masonry cavity walls dating from before the Second World War. Builders and architects started to experiment with cavity or 'hollow walls' from early in the Victorian period. By the first decade of the 20th century, most pattern books for houses included examples of outer walls with two separate leaves of brickwork. Initially the development of the hollow wall was to provide as much protection as possible from the elements, especially driving rain, together with enhanced stability and economy of materials. These types of wall first appeared in exposed areas, particularly coastal locations. Since the energy crisis of the early 1970s it has become common to fill or partially fill the cavity with a variety of insulation materials to reduce the heat loss through the wall. Modern cavity walls (post-Second World War) often provide a good opportunity to improve thermal performance with cavity insulation. Such insulation is invisible, cheap and quick to install, with no reduction to room sizes. However, cavity insulation is not generally suitable for all cavity walls particularly those classed as 'early cavity walls'. The performance of early cavity walls will differ from that of later cavity walls and these differences need to be taken into account when considering the addition of insulation. However, some early cavity walls can be insulated using cavity insulation and this guidance discusses how to determine whether any particular wall is suitable. For some early cavity walls, cavity fill insulation will always be unsuitable and the construction needs to be treated as a solid wall, insulated either internally or externally or not at all. This guidance forms one of a series of thirteen guidance notes covering the thermal upgrading of building elements such as roofs, walls and floors.

This text provides a broad view of the research performed in building physics at the start of the 21st century. The focus of this conference was on combined heat and mass flow in building components, performance-based design of building enclosures, energy use in buildings, sustainable construction, users' comfort and health, and the urban micro-climate.

This book meets the needs for a basic, yet comprehensive and up-to-date, introductory text to building technology for students in architecture and the other disciplines in building design. The wide coverage is organised under the chapter headings: structure, enclosure, climate services, utility services, lighting, acoustics, fire safety, the future? The treatment in each case is concentrated on the close relationship between good design practice and the basic underlying scientific and practical principles, but stopping short of the high level theory which is to be found in other more closely specialised texts.This well illustrated and highly readable book will be invaluable to the student and of interest to the practitioner too, both in architecture and in its related technical fields.

The second edition of Modern Construction Envelopes was originally based on the two books by Andrew Watts, Modern Construction Roofs and Modern Construction Facades . Both volumes were gathered into one single volume and consolidated in terms of content, which permits the consideration of facades and roofs as envelopes. Using current examples by renowned architects, Watts presents the constructive and material-related details. This presentation is based on a text, photos, and standardized detail drawings, as well as 3D representations of the components. The new edition has 3D views that are easier to understand than the first edition, with sharper images and more key explanations.

The National Park Service's official advice on preserving and restoring historic buildings.