PCM in the energy redevelopment of social housing

In Italy there is a substantial building heritage of social housing built in the '70s/'80s with industrialized/prefabricated techniques with low energy efficiency. These buildings require energy redevelopment actions. However, the interventions that can be carried out must necessarily be compatible with the building techniques, which are not very invasive and have fairly low costs. Therefore only a very limited number of solutions related to the envelope and to the systems can be applied, allowing users not to leave their accommodation. In most of the Italian climatic zones, the interventions to be adopted on the envelope, generally related to the external insulation and to the replacement of the windows, generate however an improvement of the energetic performance and of the comfort only in winter regime. In fact, during the summer, internal comfort conditions get worse, because the internal temperatures tend to raise of a few degrees. In addition to these solutions this requires also systems that allow at least not to worsen the conditions of summer comfort. This paper presents the application to a representative building of this historical period in Florence area, realized with the SBS building system, adopting an external insulation, varying and evaluating the thermal insulation materials, also applying phase change materials (PCM) and systems to prevent the indoor overheating in the summer season.