Deutsche Startseite "Architektur-Magazin Altbau und Denkmalpflege Informationen" 
Mold attack - What to do? A Guide +++
Rising Damp - A Fake? Heating Costs Saving and Health Protection by the Interior Room Surface Heating System +++
Low-cost Repair, Renovation + Refurbishing of your old House 
Traditional Craftmanship in Modern Mortars – Does it work in practice? (in english) 
Dipl.-Ing. Konrad Fischer,
Architect and Engineer
The author in a discussion on the television: Collapses of the roofs - VIDEO-CLIP.WMV 3MB -
A Scandalous Chronicle of Damaged Roofs (German) +++
An Ironical Criticism of the Ecological Building (German) +++
An Ironical Criticism of Energy Saving in the Old Building (German) +++
An Ironical Criticism of Repairing the Ancient House (German)
Building facts you've never heard about: Did your audacious restoration, renovation, refurbishing, reconstruction, remodeling, improvement, rehabilitation or modernization of your historic
building change to a disaster? Have you lost all your money and hope?
Did you insulate your old house, your ancient hut or the new ecological barrack completely
by thermal insulation and did you lock it hermetically and airtight? Does the mold fungus / mildew grow at the walls
and in the roof? Is your private gas chamber poisoned with insecticide, fungicide, algicide, pesticide,
synthetic softener, solvent and fire protection? From the ceiling the water drips and the dry rot grows? Suffer
your children of skin disease like dermatosis, seborrheic or atopic dermatitis, psoriasis with blisters, edema,
formation of a crust, moist discharge, crusting, scaly papules and plaques, itching, allergy and eczema from the
front to the back, from the top to the bottom? Do all have asthma and cough? Are your tearing eyes and thumbs
completely blue now?
Had you always found the perfect experts, chartered surveyors, builders, firms, craftsmen, restorers, architects and
engineers in your neighbourhood and fabulous consultants in the InterNet Forums? Could you take advantage of the best
and cheapest offers of the market to refurbish your worthful and very ancient gem made from wood, stone and mortar with
the super modern building materials which can be used so quick as a tempest storm and must not fit to any physical
behavior and stylish outfit of your old fashioned construction?
Did your splendid architect get your money for the planning which his industrial friends and producers of building materials gave to him?
Free for him but too expensive for you. And so comes up a 'solution' which is neither cheap nor fitting to your low budget? This isn't rare
at the rescue of the cultural heritage. However, you don't know it. And have you realised the most expensive perfect nonsense
in your house now? I congratulate! But: Perhaps your work may succeed still better, healthier and even many more
cheaply? Do you know how?
You are welcome cordially and thank you very much for your visit. This web site waited for a long time just for you. Perhaps it is not too late for you and your historic house? Here you will find free, independent, critical and controversial information for many questions and problems regarding your house. Topics: The repair of old buildings by low price, the restoration of historic monuments and the preservation of valuable works of art, energy efficiency with respect of building construction and heating methods. The information is mostly in German language. Some pages are in other languages (English, Russian, Italian, Danish, Swedish ...) and now first time in your language. Thanks to machine translators ;-) Please: If there are misspellings and grammatical faults in the text, send me the improvement. That will help all visitors. Thank you!
Famous and recommended home repair and advice books from one of the best British authors and the UK's
top (and only?) building expert, my dear colleague: Jeff Howell, webmaster of AskJeff.co.uk:But why this text in your language now? Because also in your country old houses, buildings and historic monuments with their external and internal parts form the foundation to the roof, from the fresco to the furniture must be restored. Many technical and economical problems and other questions we have in common. The errors too. With the same disasters for the historic buildings, the ancient monuments, old houses, medieval castles and renaissance or baroque palaces, for the mansions and city halls, for the churches, monasteries and abbeys, for antique temples, synagogues and mosques, for the winery and brewery, for the villas of the merchants and the mansions of the citizens and craftsmen, for the farmhouses and the huts of the poor people, and for the stables of the horses and cows. Is it magic, ritual and witchcraft in old houses, which blames all your desperate efforts to get them in better shape? Other crafts? The international building industry and your experts don't sleep. This will also cost your money. Do you want to see examples? Click the pictures for further information:
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Explanation of the pictures: (1), (2), (3), (4): Destroyed surfaces and crusts as typical result of potassium silicate strengthening and potassium silicate coating; (5) Toxic black mold fungus in the bathroom as common result of refurbishing by modern theory and technical means. Think about pollution & air quality - Indoor air!; (6a) No ascending or rising dampness in the brick-work in a bath tub! (6b) Salpetre salt flourishes on the wall after a horizontal sealing treatment with salty borehole injection; (7) Growth of algae on the surface of External Thermal Insulation Composite System (ETICS)/Exterior Insulating Finishing System (EIFS), from: B+B, Magazine for building maintenance and care of monuments, January 2002, photographer: University Wismar; (8) Soaked thermal insulation in the garden, from: "Building craft and reconstruction of buildings 2/01", photographer: H. Paetzold; (9) Wet thermal insulation / insealation outside and mold fungus / mildew inside; (10) Exploded and burned down thermal insulation, from: "Pictures of the damages up-to-date", Bavarian fire insurance Munich; (11) Cement mortar, brick-work and frost; (12) Cement and natural stone; (13) Lime from the mortar on the new front; (14) Synthetic resin coating on a historic front; (15) Synthetic resin coating on a window; (16) Synthetic resin paint on a fence; (17) Window and insealation technology today
Is this information controversial and unusual? However, the information corresponds to the old one Tradition and art of the skilled crafts. Many years experience at the restoration work are the basis: Historic monuments and ancient buildings from the farmhouse to castles, manor houses, mansions and ecclesiastical buildings like churches and monasteries. Also my father had been architect and did this conservation work since 1958 until his dead 1979, when I started. I could learn much from him. After my studies I had been a scientific volunteer in the office for care of monuments in Munich for two years.
The best specialists of the industry, the famous experts from the handicraft, the very trustworthy engineers, the always dark black dressed architects and also your so friendly friends nearby will have mostly another opinion. Perhaps they will give better advice. But you must decide by yourself whether my information for you is meaningful and useful. However, you also can follow your wise experts on the broad one Street of the success (only for the experts?).
Perhaps you can find no answer to your questions here. Alternative: You will find over 1500 pages to all these topics and more in German language: Restoration, preservation, conservation, technical and historical investigation and survey of buildings, building materials for old houses: Brick, lime, mortar, plaster, brick-work, half-timbered framework, concrete, painting from synthetic resin and potassium silicate, restoration and strengthening of sandy and corroded natural stones, problems with the restoration and renewal of the house and its parts from the foundation to the roof, economy and financing, deceit and corruption at the industry and the planning of houses and restorations. Last, but not least - an adventure: The climatic change - what's true? Here you can find the way in:
- You want to buy a German castle or palace? Do you want to know the selling price? Examples: Palace / Castle / Manor-house / Mansion for Sale.
- Ascending dampness, moistness and rising damp.
Here you find, what can be made wrong against dampness, wetness and salpetre salts in the moistured masonry of walls
and brick-work, in the cellar and in the foundation, at the front and in the layers of plaster. Ineffective,
destructive and very expensive masonry drying methods and salpetre treatment like brutal horizontal isolation by
chemical injection in drilled holes (borehole injection), drilled metal plates or foils after masonry sawing,
hermetic mortars and paints with synthetic resins and very funny electronic dewatering / electrical damp-proofing by
electro-osmosis. Methods, which do not work and make all worse: The largest business for the swindlers and damp proof
companies not only in Germany. Also in English language: Rising
damp does not exist
No capillary ascending and rising dampness in the brick-work and masonry - not in
the laboratory, not at the building in the water, not at all at the brick-work in the harbour. But why?
Because the capillary transport from the material with small pores (like brick and natural stone) into the material
with large pores (mortars) is impossible! 
And the capillary transport in the pores of the stones and the mortar joints will not defeat the gravity more than 10 to 20 cm. Only
the water-waves and the salty water of the high tide make the walls wet! So it is in good old and modern Germany, should it be
possible nevertheless in your so beautiful and mysterious country? Test it yourself in your bathroom, if you don't want to believe
this! Don't believe in bad guys and silly theories. Don't believe me too! A colored silk tie neither and a silver shining big car
nor a colored web page can improve bad advice! And what will you believe? Hoax and witch work? Enlightenment must
be! But if you will do it yourself, you must buy construction material or masonry saw to pick out your experimental
unit from a building wall. Then start and try and error!
There are many problems to solve in repairing and modernizing old buildings for new usage. The most money is lost not by bad work, but by bad planning. That's true and not a newly made knowledge. But to find the best way to repair and refurbish, to conservate and to restore and to rehabilitate, you must find out the building's substance, the building's structure and the reason of it's damages by researching and analyzing. Afterwards you have to find and proof the superior alternatives to give the building a new modern and fit for future function and a new (or antiqued?) shape if necessary. This all by economical invest and trustful technique, what means a neutral and independent planning too. What will naturally not exclude the need for best practise craftsman and suppliers in the later coming phase of working out and building all the good ideas after a fair participation in the awarding of contracts. A special challenge is to make an old building accessible for handicapped people. However, with the right partners including a lifts expert or maybe manufacturer and an experienced architect, it should be possible. But please remember the following: Not all modernizing, not all changing, not all destroying may be necessary, useful or allowed to a honest preservational purpose. You must alway consider what's worthful and what's needed and what's a really must be for the good old house. The abdication of exaggerated renewing is perhaps the most important feature of the true lover of historical buildings and best practise maintaining our national heritage.
- Mold fungus and black mildew - The result of the modern building methods by wrong
thermal insulation, hermetic airtight rooms and heating of the room air. So your most important food is abused - the
air to breathe. Also in English: How to get
rid with mold attack - Mildew attack - What to do? A Guide.
- Climatic change / Climate change / Climate protection - Global warming and cooling:
1st
2nd
1st Scientific Facts from Germany (Hohenpeissenberg) and 2nd apocalyptic
green horror and green climate alarmism from England (Hadley), eco-terrorism and industrial, scientific, media and political leaders
as eco-terrorists. CO2-emission diminuishing as a new threatful weapon of the nuclear and carbon based energy/power gang against
mankind worldwide. Learn more about hoax of the anthropogenic climate change doomsayers and wonder about the background and the
thruth of climatic mitigation, climate protection, AGW conspiracy, climate adaptation, climate scepticism / skepticism, denial,
sceptic / skeptic, climate contrarians, pessimists and optimists.
There's an elephant in global warming's living room that few in the mainstream media want to talk about: the creators of the carbon credit scheme are the ones cashing in on it.
The two cherub like choirboys singing loudest in the Holier Than Thou Global Warming Cathedral are Maurice Strong and Al Gore.
This duo has done more than anyone else to advance the alarmism of man-made global warming.
With little media monitoring, both Strong and Gore are cashing in on the lucrative cottage industry known as man-made global warming.
Strong is on the board of directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Wikipedia-described as "the world's first and North America's only legally binding greenhouse gas emission registry reduction system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil."
Gore buys his carbon off-sets from himself--the Generation Investment Management LLP, "an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London and Washington, D.C." of which he is both chairman and founding partner. ..." read more ...
And please read, what Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen submitted to this site:
Don’t be fooled!
Let me start with the last sentences of the editorial I have just written and which, by chance, mentions airline passengers:
“ (Name deleted)… reviews in depth a current challenge and funding source for geology - geo-sequestration of carbon dioxide. Geologists
world wide are keenly researching and testing this latest response to ‘almost certain’ man-made global warming. It can be
done, at a price, and as long as the price of carbon is right and carbon emissions can be traded - airline passengers may pay - the oil,
gas and coal industries will love CCS. But is it ‘safe’? Will global warming be stopped (and the
depletion of fossil fuels slowed down) by pumping the lithosphere full of greenhouse gases? It is human nature, surely, to solve one problem
by creating another. E&E will continue to critique (anti)global warming policy with reference to both science, economics and politics.
” (Energy &Environment, 18 (2) forthcoming, Multi-Science), CCS: carbon capture and sequestration
Having studied international environmental politics and the underlying science claims since the 1970s (including a three year project on the
politics of the IPCC) have led to the conclusion that the Climate Treaty of 1992 was a serious mistake and that the
‘mitigation’ emission reductions policies demanded by the UN/EU and our government are based on weak science and far too
much wishful thinking. Most importantly, a large number of other quite uncoordinated agendas have attached themselves to the emission
reduction agenda.(Hence NO conspiracy , but a lot of no regret, win-win hopes)
The latter range from increasing the regulatory power and revenue income of states, to attracting increasing funding for
‘relevant’ research lobbies (all climate science is state funded); from image enhancement (e.g. of nuclear power) to state
subsidies for R&D an uncompetitive energy sources (wind, solar); from enlarged foreign aid streams (that promise to return
‘home’ to experts), to the enhanced centralisation of state functions.
The Climate Treaty and even more so its 1997 Kyoto Protocol assert that global warming is man-made and dangerous. By doing so they misdirected
scientific research and especially the computer modelling of climate change 9doen by Met Offices), into a biased and too narrow direction.
The serious warming that is forecast is done by computer models that remain heavily criticised by outsiders, e.g. scientists working on the
solar and other extraterrestrial influences on climate, on water vapour (the major greenhouse gas that cannot be modelled), limestone
geologists and people studying aerosols; as well as by energy economists that doubt the emission scenarios fed into these coupled
atmospheric models. There are many scientists who argue that the little amount of climatic change and sea level rise that has indeed
been observed, has other explanations and in any remains within the range of natural variability. (Greenland, the Roman warm
period..the Little Ice Age we are still moving out of).
Some argue that in a few years we shall enter another cooler period. There has been no increase in global average warming since 1998. (How
is this measured? How good are these numbers?) In the long term, we are moving towards another ice age, and that would be much worse.
Why was the world political system and especially the UK/EU (and their bureaucracies) so keen to accept the dangerous man-made GW hypothesis?
I have long argued that this was linked, inter alia , to the sudden drop of oil prices in the mid-1980s. The IPCC was negotiated in 1986.
(Sunk investments needed protection; global energy polices also aid globalisation for the increasingly weak IOC - international as distinct
from national oil companies)
The science debate, let me assure you, is only closed for the UK climate modellers and the bureaucracy that fund them, e.g. the MET
Office and their research support, and of course for a number of publicity (or election) seeking politicians.
It is also important, in defence of politicians and civil servants, that the science debate never started for environmentalists.
They assume that environmental change is bad, is caused by humans and a subject for spreading guilt and doom. They were
also pleased to have a global issue, local issues are much more hard work with less glamour. The environmental lobby can also be described,
today, as an institutional expression of ‘global salvationism’, a combination of Puritanism, empire building
instincts and anti-business impulses. Unchecked, this lobby or even ‘secular religion’ could become a more serious
challenge to the west than Islamist terrorism because in UK the environmentalists do not suffer from a credibility gap; confidence in
them and hence trust in them, remain high. Here, the consensus now includes all political parties, with only a
section of the Conservatives (around Nigel Lawson) prepared to speak against.
At best, according to environmentalists (strong in universities and the Cabinet Office), a vast amount of state regulation and subsidisation
(incentives!) are needed to correct markets and control human behaviour. Without guilt, this could become expensive! Agreeing with
global warming alarmism (and hence not opposing government policies justified with reference to guilt even when they hurt) has become
political correctness and is therefore difficult to oppose.
What to do? Opposition comes from knowledge, not ‘faith or ‘identity’, the current determinants of too much of
our politics. Perhaps one could preach a counter hypothesis which goes as follows.
1. Admit that a number of positive goals can be achieved by some ‘decarbonisation/emission reduction policies/efforts. You may
save money… But applied indiscriminately and too fast, emission reduction by diktat will undermine world trade (e.g of
tourism, agricultural trade, oil, gas and coal, cars etc..) and make everybody poorer apart from the very rich. This would lead to growing
political unrest, bad enough as it is! Political instability would require more of society’s limited resources to be spend not
on consumption (and hence production, even if abroad) but on security, on laws and order.
2.Instead limited wealth today should instead be spent on sharing it, (e.g.travel), investing it (good infrastructure such as roads and
schools) and human health. Educated people that are mobile and well informed (connected!) will face the future better equipped than less
mobile, scared ones (even if sea levels and average temperatures rise a little.
3. The current politics of climate change are based on blame games (by fuel and country) and have created mainly politics and more regulation
and government intervention. The main supporters therefore of dangerous global warming that need to be challenged are bureaucracies and
treasuries, as well as the greening of the very rich, who may want to empty the skies, resorts and high streets to have it all for
themselves, as in the good old days…. ADAPT OR DIE
Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Hull University; February 2007
And the leader party in this bad game are the fellows of the nuclear industries: They promise not to emit any carbon
dioxide, the so bad greenhouse gas, and this exactly will save the whole globe from the horrific consequences of
environmental change by global warming. Who will argue such good guys? Likewise we could believe the tricky oil, gas and coal
companies, that our 'diminishing' but in reality unlimited energy comes from fossiles /fossile sources. Who can trust in such stinky, pongy, reeky and stenchy but miasmal fake shit after Prof. Thomas Gold (1999): "The deep
hot biosphere"? So learn the most important lesson in economies: Artifical scarcity, shortage
and stringency of goods by weird junk science theories are marketing tactics for increasing the price without any real
needs. But we all have endless to pay for our superstition in 'science' and their industrial payed and installed
clergy-mans, the mafiotic club / mafiosi gang of hoaxy 'scientists'. My tip for you (despite I know you'll never
believe me an only word on this site): Better believe in GOD. It's much more cheaper for better results at long sight,
in the long term, range and run onto eternity ;-)
From www.sepp.org/:
PRESIDENT OF CZECH REPUBLIC CALLS MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING A 'MYTH' - QUESTIONS GORE'S SANITY
Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific
basis. In an interview (Feb. 8. 2007) with "Hospodrsk noviny", a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few
questions (translation courtesy of Lubos Motl, Harvard)
-------------------------------------
* Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?
* A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the UN panel.
IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of
neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a
one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people must wait for the full report till May 2007 but instead respond, in
such a serious way, to the Summary for Policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.
* This is clearly an incredible failure of many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly
going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding
about similar issues.
* Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has
such strong opinions...
* A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global-warming doubts because a whip
of political correctness strangles their voice.
* Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have sufficient knowledge and enough information?
* A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate.
Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable, and this fact scares me. The second part of the
sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrically opposite.
* Indeed, I never measured the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn. However, as a
scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't
have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we see in the media simply don't
appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me -- which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The
article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about
climate change.
* Environmentalism and green ideology are something very different from climate science. Various findings of scientists are abused by this
ideology.
* Q: How do you explain that conservative media are skeptical while the left-wing media view global warming as a done deal?
* A: It is not quite exactly divided into left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless, it's obvious that environmentalism is a
new incarnation of modern leftism.
* Q: If you look at all these things, even if you were right ...
* A: ...I am right...
* Q: Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?
* A: It's such nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.
* Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?
* A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't. I don't
see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing. Look: you
represent the economic media, so I expect a certain economical erudition from you. My book will answer these questions. For example,
we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one hand and the wealth and technological prowess
on the other. It's clear that the poorer society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.
* It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much
more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007,
Nature is protected incomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago -- or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.
* That's why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you're unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation
only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers. It is more likely that you actually believe
what you say.
Wolfgang’s Workshop of Atmospheric Physics
Radiation in the Atmosphere
Everything emits radiation. Any solid or liquid body not at absolute zero transmits energy to its surroundings by radiation. The warmer an object is, the more radiation energy it emits, and the shorter is the wavelength that characterizes that radiation. The farther a receiver is from the radiation source, the less radiation is received. If we increase the separation from a distance r1 to a distance r2, the radiation intensity reaching this body will be reduced by the factor (r1/r2)2. The dependence is known as the ‘inverse square law’ for radiation.
The radiation intensity depends also on the angle at which the radiation strikes the surface. If the radiation arrives at right angles to the surface, the radiation energy received by a given area is a maximum. The more oblique the incident radiation, the smaller the amount of energy received. For this reason, the ground is warmed very little by sunlight near sunrise and sunset and is heated most strongly at local noon. Also, winter is colder than summer because the sun is generally low in winter sky on the northern hemisphere.
Radiation can generally be defined as a transfer of energy by the rapid oscillations of electromagnetic fields in space. These oscillations can be considered as travelling waves, with a characteristic wavelength, frequency and speed. All electromagnetic waves are basicelly the same phenomenon, they are travelling with the speed of light and require no intervening medium, that means, they are capable of transmitting energy through a vacuum. The basic difference between all forms of radiation is the wavelength. The oscillatory force field is capable of causing charged electrons to move, thereby transferring energy. When the electrical charges in the molecules of the earth, the ground, or our skin are subjected to this oscillating force, they begin to vibrate faster, increasing their kinetic energy or energy of motion. We feel this increase in kinetic energy as a rise in temperature.
A rise in temperature causes an increase in molecular exitation within the material, which favours the acceleration of particular electrical charge carriers and, hence, the generation of radiation. The wavelength of emitted radiation varies inversely with the transition energy. It is important to note that, in the infrared region, the wavelengths are long and the radiation energy is low. If the material allows all possible transitions, like in liquid or solid bodies, the wavelength distribution will therefore be uniform and the radiation is then said to have a continuous spectrum. Certain substances like all gases allow only a few well-defined transitions. The emission can occur only at certain frequencies and takes the form of discrete wavelengths because there are quantum selection rules. Each atom or molecule has a special and characteristic line spektrum and can therefore identified by its absorption- or emission lines.
All objects are sources of radiation, but the amount and kind of radiation each object emits depend on the temperature and emissivity of the object, which are measures of how efficiently the object emits radiation. According to ‘Kirchhoff’s law’, the absorptivity and emissivity of a body are equal; a good admitter is a good absorber. In the visible wavelengths, black coal dust is a good absorber. White snow, on the other hand, reflects most of the incident radiation in the visible range. But an object that is a good absorber of certain wavelengths is not necessarily a good absorber of all wavelengths. Thus, fresh snow is very nearly a white body in visible wavelengths, whereas it is almost a black body in infrared wavelengths. Because nearly 50 percent of the energy of the sun is infrared radiation, fresh white snow is melting like butter in the sun.
A perfect absorber/emitter is called a ‘black body’ and has a emissivity of 100 percent. A perfect reflector or ‘white body’ has an emissivity of 0 percent. A ‘blackbody’ is an idealised body and is one that absorbs all of the electromagnetic radiation striking it. A blackbody is also a perfect emitter of radiation. In any event the definition does not imply that the object must be black in color. As above mentioned, snow is an excellent blackbody, but only in the infrared part of the spectrum. Consequently snow brings strong coldness during clear nights!
For a perfect all-wave blackbody the intensity of the emitted radiation and the wavelength distribution depend only on the absolute temperature of the body. The ‘Stefan’s law’ applies: S = σ T4 W/m2. This ‘fourth-power law’ was formulated before ‘Planck’s law’. ‘Wien’s distribution law’ λm = 2898/T µm shows that the wavelength of maximum energy λm is inversely proportional to absolute temperature. ‘Wien’s law’ describes the relationship between the wavelength at which the maximum amount of radiation is emitted and the temperature of the body. If we assume the earth a blackbody with a temperature of 288 K ( +15° C) then the maximum of the emitted energy lies by 10 µm. The heated and cooled earth with ground temperatures between -50° and +50° C emits the maximum amount of radiation in wavelengths between 8 and 14 µm.
The atmosphere surrounding the Earth is a gaseous envelope, held by gravity, having its maximum density and pressure just above the solid/liquid surface, and becoming gradually thinner with distance from the ground, until it finally becomes indistinguishable from the interplanetary gas. The atmosphere is transparent to long wave radiation emitted by the earth’s surface in certain wavelength intervals, particular within a spectral range of approximately 8 to 14 μm, which is called the open atmospheric radiation window. Therefore under clear skies an object can be cooled below ambient air temperature by radiation heat loss.
An important property of the earth’s radiation is that its absorption by gases in the atmosphere is not continuous over the spectrum but occurs in a series of discrete lines. In some parts of the spectrum, infrared radiation can move upward relatively freely and be lost to space when skies are clear; the most notable example is the radiation window between 8 to 14 μm. This window is by nature open and can’t be closed by the absorption bands of the atmospheric gases, especially not by the strong absorption bands of CO2 at 15 µm. This band corresponds to a blackbody temperaature distinctly colder than that within the atmospheric window., where outgoing radiation emanates from the earth’s surface. The 15-µm emission of CO2 corresponds to a blackbody temperature of about 203 K or -70° C. With such a cold absorbed and re-emitted temperature radiation it’s impossible to heat up the warmer earth. The width of the window, calculated with ‘Wien’s law’, covers over a temperature range between 339 K and 213 K or between +66° C and -60° C.
The infrared radiation window allows the possibility of remote sensing of the earth by airplanes and satellites. The quantity most frequently measured in present-day remote sensing systems is the electromagnetic energy emanating from the earth surface and the objects of interest on it. Observing the earth from outer space by weather satellites through the radiation window all objects in a broad temperature range between +/-60° C can be detected during day and night by its infrared radiation. The absorptivity and emissivity of gases is strongly wavelenth dependent, varying from Zero values in the window to high values in the characteristic absorption bands. Water vapour has strong bands between 5 and 8 µm and beyond 20 µm and carbon dioxide around 15 µm. While water vapour as an invisible gas is a selective absorber and emitter, dense liquid rain- or snow-clouds act essentially as blackbodies.
Infrared receiver systems are generally used for the remote detection of thermal phenomena. They usually produce one- or two-dimensional images and have to satisfy a number of more or less stringent functional criteria. Thermography allows us not only to see the invisible, but also to detect and to evaluate it. It extends the power of the eye beyond the limits of its sensivity. The invisible infrared radiation permanently emitted by different objects, which cannot directly perceived by the eye, is thus transformed into recognisable messages that are conveyed to us by an optoelectronic detection sytem.
Thermal imaging systems operate in the 3-3,5 µm and 8-12 µm bands which match the atmospheric transmission windows and produce images with contrast proportional to variations in received radiation. There is no difference making an infrared signature of a merchant navy ship, of a person, of a building, of a vertical-takeoff aircraft or of a tank in a desert.
In 1800, Sir William Herschel discovered the presence of the thermal radiation outside the spectrum of visible light. However, it was not until 1830 that the first detectors were developed for this type of radiation. Between 1870 and 1920, technological advances led to the development of the first quantum detectors based on the interaction between radiation and matter. Later photoconducting or photovoltaic detectors were found. Beyond 1930 lead sulfide detectors, sensitive in the 1.3-3 µm, were developed. After 1940 the spectral range was extended to middle infrared (3-5 µm) by the use of indium antimonide. After 1960 the far infrared between 8-14 µm was explored by mercury-tellurium-cadmium detectors.
The last type of detectors requires cooling. Because of their higher sensitivity and short-response times, these quantum detectors have led to the development of thermal imaging systems that rely on the detection of infrared radiation emitted by matter in the range 2–15 µm. The line-scanning infrared analyser is the answer to problems in second-generation thermography. The concept of infrared linear scanning has been around in the field of defense for about 30 years and has led to the development of airborne systems for the infrared imaging of the ground with very high spatial resolution. With a modern thermograaphic equipment it is possible to transform an infrared image into a visible image that can be transmitted by a video signal.
The infrared thermography is an undoubtly proof that the IPCC-hypothesis can’t be right. The atmosphere doesn’t act like the glasses of a greenhouse which primarily hinder the convection! The atmosphere has an open radiation window between 8 and 14 µm and is therefore transparent to infrared heat from the earth’s surface. This window can’t be closed by the distinctive absorption lines of CO2 at 4.3 and 15 µm. Because the atmosphere is not directly heated by the Sun but indirectly from the surface, the earth loses warmth also by conduction with the air, more effective by vertical convection of the air and to a great part by evaporation.
Summarizing we can say: Earth’s surface gains heat from the Sun, is warmed up and loses heat by infrared radiation. While the input of heat by solar radiation is restricted on the daytime hours, the outgoing terrestrial radiation is a nonstop process during day and night and depends only on the bodytemperature and the emissivity. Therefore after sunset the earth continuous to radiate and therefore cools. Because the air is in physical contact with the ground, it also cools, so that the vertical temperature profile changes, we get a surface inversion which inhibits convection.
All temperature and weather observations indicate that the earth isn’t like a greenhouse and that there is in reality no “natural greenhouse effect” which could warm up the earth by its own emitted energy and cause by re-emission a “global warming effect”. With or without atmosphere every body loses heat, gets inevitably colder. This natural fact, formulated by Sir Isaac Newton in his “cooling law”, led Sir James Dewar to the construction of the “Dewar flask” to minimize heat losses from a vessel. But the most perfect thermosflask can’t avoid that the hot coffee in it gets cold after some time.
The hypothesis of a natural and a man-made “greenhouse effect” belongs to the category “scientific errors”.
Oppenheim, 14th of February 2007
Dr. Wolfgang Thüne, Dipl.Met.
References:
1. Kondratyev, K. Ya.: Radiation in the Atmosphere, New York 1969
2. Coulson, K. L.: Solar and terrestrial radiation, New York 1975
3. Swain, Ph. H.; Davis Sh. M.: Remote sensing: The quantitative approach, New York 1978
4. Maldague, X. P. V.: Nondestructive evaluation of materials by infrared thermography, London 1992
5. Gaussorgues, G.; Chomet, S.: Infrared thermography, London 1994
6. Anthes, R. A. et al: The atmosphere, Columbus 1981
7. Salby, M. L.: Fundamentals of atmospheric physics, San Diego 1995
8. Philander, S. G.: Is the temperature rising? The uncertain science of global warming, Princeton 1998
Global Warming Hysteria Could Make Gore Richest VP in History
But after 1998 only GISS/NASA shows temperature increasing at a record pace - nearly a full degree warmer than 1880. All in accordance with IPCC estimates. How good is that not to the believers. All the other show no change in the temperature over the last decade. Had-Crut states earth is not warmer now than it was 1878 or 1941. UAH and RSS for obvious reason with records only from 1978 show decreasing temperatures over the last decade with present temperature barely above the 30 years average.
- The fraud with the thermal insulation EIFS / ETICS / EWI /EWIS. - Wrong energy
saving, terrorist ecological laws and corrupted governmental and building code regulations force you, to destroy
your own house and your family's or tenant's health & life: With industrial and ecological materials for the
wrong thermal insulation, working as insealation. Expensive packed air in foam and fibers, artificial and ceramic
stones with pores, wool, cotton, hemp, cellulose, recycled newspapers, sea-grass... costs your money. However,
these materials will certainly moisture up soon. Then follows the algae. The poisonous black mold fungus also.
And the white mildew, the spiders, cockroach, carpeneter ants, bookworm / fishmoth / silver fish, gnawing beetles
like death-watch beetles (Xestobium rufovillosum), furniture beetles (Anobium punctatum) and termites,
the worms and the book louse (trogium pulsatorium), the mice, the rats, the weasel and the woodpecker. Maybe asthma, headache, dermatitis and cancer too.
Algae on the surface of an External Thermal Insulation Composite System (ETICS)/Exterior Insulation inishing System EIFS.
Be cautious against the dangerous technology of the passive house and thermal insulation! German junk science! There are also today in Germany cheats. The modern science can be very corrupt ...
The best & independent info source for history and damage of the EIFS-scam - EIFSFACTS.ORG!!!
EIFS/ETICS/EWIS-Damage Documentation in US by Rob Santana
US-EIFS Scam and horrible Damages by EIFS Blogspot
This diagram points the consumption of energy to heating rooms with different constructions of their walls. The
Rth-value (= k-value) without any sense as benchmark, gauge, norm, touchstone, scale or criterion for thermal barrier and effect I. Research from the Fraunhofer-Institut
in the winter 1983. x-axis: k-value of the wall construction; y-axis: Consumed Watt of heat energy in the
measured time. Purple and red: Thermal insulation with 23 and 10 cm polystyrene. Green: Only brick.
|
Address Lawyer Address Client, ./. condominium owners of residential apartments regarding the resolution contestation (Beschlussanfechtung) Short statement to the planned facade repair 1. Client: … 2. Ground of the short statement The statement is done as argumentation support for the resolution contestation against the planned facade repair in ... with an external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS)/exterior insulation finishing system (EIFS). 3. Building specification The messuage in ... is a multistoried building with eight floors and 32 living apartments, built in reinforced concrete skeleton construction. It was established approx. 1965. 4. Building construction front The reinforced concrete construction is up from the 2nd floor coated with asbestos cement panels (Eternit sheets) on thermo-insulating magnesite-bound woodwool boards (Heraklith). 5. “Thermal insulation” of the fronts 5.1 Planned measures According to planning of architect ... after strapping off the Heraklith panels the fronts will be coated with 14 cm thick expanded polystyrene boards (fabricate ... on base of Neopor®, with graphite added) on adhesive mortar, whereupon a synthetic resin plaster is coated, reinforced by embedded synthetic netas armouring against temperature stresses (temperature extension of polystyrene: 8 mm/m x 100 K, reinforced concrete and cemtent plaster: 1,2 (!) mm/m x 100 K). As surface layer of the so-called extern thermal insulation composite system (ETICS)/External Wall Insulation System (EWIS)/Exterior Insulation Finishing System (EIFS) thereby a coating equipped with pesticides (algicides, fungicides). The original wooden windows shall be exchanged against airtight and extremely dense plastic framed insulating glass windows. To what extent the substantial shape change would be acceptable by the planned coating measures with adequate appreciation of the aesthetical interests, is not subject to the evaluation of the signer. 5.2 Evaluation of the polystyrene coating in build-constructional regard The extern thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) with imbedded graphite powder in order to reduce the penetration of radiant heat through the facade is a lightweight construction system with very small heat storage capacity. In contrast to a solid wall surface the radiation exchange of a lightweight construction with the cold night sky leads to a short time lose of the heat taken up during the day by diffuse and direct solar radiation. While solid surfaces even at longer frost periods very seldom drop under the outside temperature, on the very cooler surfaces of insulating layers condensation will wet up the surface nearly every night and will occasionally freeze and destroy the facade. You can proof this by yourself, only use a IR-Thermometer
Illustration: Frozen and algae infestated / affected ETICS/EWIS/EIFS coating The temperature reduction of the surface under the temperature of cooling down night air favours the dampf condensing on and in the coating system. Air humidity penetrates behind the diffusion-open coating and condenses in the cooler internal area of the coating system. A further humidification of the insulating material occurs in connection with the mentioned large temperature strain of the insulating material system. The substantial temperature strains of the system lead after some time despite the constructional counter measures (reinforcing) - according to experience - to cracks in the coating system. The cracks forming in the Coating work capillary-actively and aspirate rain water. As the coating system does not permit considerable capillary drying process, a substantial risk of drenching and soaking of the system is connected by condensate admission and at longer term unalterable cracking at the surface. In order to decrease the big risk of the fungi / mold and algae infestation, the synthetic and thus dry-blocking paint for the coating is equipped by added toxic algizides and fungicides (after manufacturer data: A compounded mixture from Carbendazim, Terbutryn and Octylisothiazolinon), which are out washable by spray irrigation after dismantling of the water-rejecting / hydrophobe substances first and so on longer sight their defense effect fades out. The ETICS blocks substantial parts of the solar radiation into the solid construction behind. The graphite imbedding in the insulating material also increases the need of heat energy in the winter by decreasing the solar radiation into the front. As result the whole facade system will suck up condensate and will be damped. This wetting effects are connected with more and more damage of the reinforced concrete by corrosion. As the ETICS/EWIS/EIFIS facade construction takes up less solar warmth, this cooling effect will lead to increased heating costs. A gradual drenching of the entire facade system with the following mold fungus risk in the interiors probably is followed by the planned installation of the new air tight plastic windows. Altogether in a long-term view the outside changes by coatings with insulants will cause unfavorable consequences not only for the facade system but also for the heating energy consumption and the healthy dwelling. The inclination of dampness storage and formation of mould in insulating materials is shown also by old mineral wool insulations in roof structures. They show the black-grey discolorations typical for it which starts from the boundary region to the timber construction. Not only condensate from room air is stored, but also the self-dampness from the timber wood.
Mouldy mineral wool in an attic 5.3 Evaluation of the polystyrene coating in energetic regard 5.3.1 Preface After usual viewpoint a thermal insulation system shall lead to smaller heating costs. This contradicts however the following specified facts. 5.3.2 The Rth-value/heat conduction / thermal conductivity term as hyperbolic function The Rth-value is a hyperbolic function and is calculated: Rth = 1:1/a i + 1/L + 1/a A (W/m ² K) From it results: Thickness of insulating material and the improvement of Rth-value in (W/m²K) 5 cm 0,8 10 cm 0.4 50% 20 cm 0.2 50% A duplication of the expenditure halved therefore the effect, with rising insulating material thickness decreases the efficiency. As diagram that shows up as follows, the indicated k-value is identical to the today valid Rth-value:
The hyperbolic function of the Rth-value. The efficiency border is with approx. 6-8 cm thickness of insulating material (source: Professor Dr.-Ing. Claus Meier, Richtig Bauen, 4. Edition, expert verlag 2007). As consequence higher thicknesses of insulating material cannot be realized as in the given case with 14 cm under economic criteria. 5.3.3 Relevance of the heat conduction /thermal conductivity A substantial result of a critical view on insulating projects in the reality is that the typical insulating materials without heat storing capacity in opposite to the solid construction materials have not a remarkable insulating effect at the front. They shadow the solid wall behind and thus diminish the storing of sun energy by solar radiation. This corresponds also with the results of measurement the Fraunhofer institute to comparative constructions of different k and/or Rth-values of the external walls (data source: Fraunhofer Institut for building physics, 1983). The area with allegedly bad k-/Rth-value needs the smallest heating energy for the same ambient temperature according to the result of measurement:
The fact that the real thermal behavior of materials does not agree the calculation formulas on basis of the Rth-values, under the conditions of practice with, could be approved by a newer investigation of the federal research institute for agriculture FAL, institut for operating technology and building research under Professor Dr.-Ing. Franz Josef Bockisch over an entire yearly duration at an experimental construction. Here a result of the measurement in August:
Red (line curve) the measured values, blue (broken) the standard arithmetic procedures (source: FAL, Dipl.-Ing. Karl William Haake) The undercooling of the outside inner wall in relation to the external layers and condensation susceptibility by dampness admission from outside air is clearly shown here. Likewise as result of the FAL research here an excerpt from the February curve with representation of the measured temperature gradients at the different front directions. The substantial temperatures at the front surfaces (bricks) prevent by heat storing effects the cooling and condensing under the night air temperature (blue: air temperature in accordance withGerman weather service station on testing grounds) and thus the condensate admission :
The futile insulating attempts at large buildings are shown by Professor Jens Fehrenberg, University Hildesheim, by comparing the energy consumption of neighbouring apartments with approx. 25 dwellings before and after insulating over many years. In addition the external wall is involved only with 10 to 20% in the loss of energy of buildings, so that improvements made here can have only marginal effect on total energy consumption. See for this the contribution of Professor Fehrenberg in: Deutsches Nationalkomitte Denkmalschutz (German national committee for monument protection) DNfD (Hrsg.): “Energieeinsparung bei Baudenkmälern (Energy saving at architectural monuments)”, documentation of the conference of the DNfD from 19.3.02 in Bonn, volume 67. The first diagram which is based on it shows the heating costs of the three blocks of flats at Tollenbrink in Hanover, determined by Professor Fehrenberg.
The actual heating costs of the house 6 before and after insulation by an ETICS remain in the same range as the not insulated apartment houses No. 2a and 4: With the following diagram Professor Fehrenberg shows the influence of the energy consumption at three large's buildings in Hanover only by the average temperature of the heating season. The accomplished thermal insulating measures with ETICS (entry “San.”) have therefore no remarkable influence on heating consumption:
Also the investigations of the civil engineers Wichmann/Varsek at the Justus-Knecht-Gymnasium in Bruchsal prove the real conditions of heat consumption of a solid brick masonry wall in winter (February). Therefore temperatures up to 30 °C result in the case of an outside temperature of approx. 8 °C by consumpted solar radiation on the solid surface. By the nocturnal heat emission the temperature of the solid wall drops again, remains however always substantially over the outside temperature and remains condensate-free thereby. The following illustration shows the result of measurement:
Source of picture: Rationeller Bauen, February 1983 5.3.4 Economy of an auxiliary insulation of the front The last yearly consumption of the heating serves as basis of an economic evaluation of the planned energy saving measures by window exchange and auxiliary thermal insulation. Thus the future heating energy consumption of the building and the saving potential as return of investment (ROI) for the building costs can be estimated. The average annual consumption (2003, 2005, 2006) of 14,03 litres oil/square meter and a fuel oil price of 0,4 EUR/liter will cause yearly costs of 16.524,22 EUR. Assumed a saving of (unrealistic) 40 per cent by the planned energy saving measures, this results in an annual saving of 6.609,69 EUR. Thus the costs for energy saving measures are limited to maximally 79.316,26 EUR in the case of a usual MNV (Mehrkosten-Nutzen-Verältnis, extra costs/effects relation) of 12. The planned energy saving measures with total costs from far over 400.000 EUR are thereby extremely wasting invest capital. Also if KfW credits / loans / subsidies for the front repair and the energy saving measures are given and the results for the total costs and energy savings are calculated correctly the whole calculation will never end in an economic solution. Result: After the vouchers specified here it gives as well as no energy saving by Rth-optimized insulating coatings on solid fronts. Regarding the cost situation the planned energy savings investments will not give a good return and will never be profitable. 6. Fire protection Despite the insulating materials coming to use are equipped by toxic flame retardants and of low flammability, with reaching of the ignition temperature by external influences they heavily increase the fire risk. An example of an explosive ETICS fire out “Schadensbilde Aktuell / fire damages up-to-date” of the Bavarian Fire insurance chamber may clarify that, also in Berlin in the meantime such cases of fire damage become known:
8. Further references The references and evaluations given here are based on my practical project experiences in the building renovation since 1979 as well as on consulting of relevant project and research documentations. The references follow the proven methods and not necessarily the industriallaterally affected and not always DIN standards and other alleged rules of the technology applicable for the building renovation. To the group of topics altogether I recommend supplementing my info pages on www.konrad-fischer-info.de/213baust.htm, ... /7fehrtab.htm, and .../7waefe.htm, in each case with following pages. Dipl.-Ing. Konrad Fischer, Architect BYAK responsible Expert in accordance with ZVEnEV/AVEn |
The Thermography-Hoax
Original text under the picture: "A thermal imaging of the front proves large losses of the
heat. Measurement at temperature outside 10oC, still wind and unknown temperature in the room. A cause
for the visible loss of the heat is that the window is implemented in solid masonry." From the Danish
newspaper Byg Tek (Building Technology) 25.10.04 of journalist Michael Rughede.
However, that's only advertisement of the international chemical industry and the manufacturers of non energy conserving but wasting insulating material for dummies. What you must konw: The producers 'can' be connected financially and by splendid gifts with 'some' engineers, architects, craftsmen, scientists, officials of the state, politicians and media. They all want to sell airtight houses and maximum thermal insulation to you to fill their purse with good percentages.
The picture shows only the radiation of the heat from the surface of the solid wall at 12 o'clock. The warmth comes here only from the sun. In the south the wall radiates much and red, in the west radiates the wall only little and blue - green cold.
Another crazy infrared scanning: Insulated wall blue (could not store the solar energy!), the wooden shutters before (!) are radiating heat
instead - like the solid walls of the not insulated parts of the front (Image source: Insulation prop at "www.pr-nord.de/stoo_text155.html" - Notice: The profs use anglizationed terms to fake the huge mass of stupid Germans).
The infrared scanning to detect heating losses from houses and heat leaking is another bad hoax of the so called well,
no, better super best reputated 'House Inspectors'. Naturally this famous and totally serious guys are creeping around your house just
in the early morning, taking their scans when sundown has happened. Then the thermal insulation has cooled off quickly and the
bricks and other solid materials will still radiate the huge amount of solar energy they stored during daylight the whole night. A silly fake and best junk
science just for you and your purse. Throw away your money with such jokes, it's yours, not mine. More enlightenment! It's really necessary to conserve real energy ...
- The Room Envelope Heating System - Properly or Risky Heating (in english) - Heated air or warm walls?
The usual convector heater: Hot air heats.
Head hot - feet cold.
A dusty typhoon in the room or zero wind? Predominantly heat distribution by desert storm air? Convective heat transfer or radiated heat? Much or little consumption of energy? Asthmatic children, flu in each
winter by wrong heating? Condensate and mold fungus at the cold walls - or gentle heat radiation from the surfaces
of the room? The energy saving heating with thermal radiation needs little technology. Always dry constructions and
houses, healthy, cool and pure room air are the result.
Radiant warmth is heating by infrared
thermal radiation.
The room air is a little bit cooler than the surface of the room. No airtight hermetic isolation of the rooms, no senseless thermal
insulation from expensively packed air in soaked building materials, no condensate into cold surfaces.
Much information about the disadvantages of many kilometers of heating pipes in the floor and behind the plaster in the walls, the problems of
baseboard heating, also about the better alternatives. Here one of many examples of the cheap and well preserving heating with
radiant heat: 
Veitshoechheim Palace with thermal radiation heating (english version)
- Poisoned wood protection and innocuous natural wood
preservation against destructive mushrooms / fungi, dry rot (Meruliporia incrassata; Merulius domesticus Falck; Serpula lacrymans; house eating fungus) and insects (wood worm, termites, gnawing beetle like House
Longhorn Beetle / Old house borer beetle (Hylotropes/Hylotrupes bajulus), Deathwatch beetle (Xestobium rufuvillosum),
Furniture Beetle (Annobium punctatum) & Wharf borer, Weevils (wood boring weevil, Euophryum cofine), Powder Post
Beetle (Lyctus brunneus), Millipedes (Diplopoda), Powder-post Beetles (Lyctidae), False Powder-post Beetles
(Bostrichidae), Flathead Borers (Buprestidae) ...), also for the durable care of weathered wooden constructions
outside as for example terraces, balconies, landing stages, bridges ...
Weather and wood with poisonous protection.
- Problems regarding the old and new windows and the coating
- with manytechnical explanations.
Old windows and new synthetic resin coating after one year.
Electromagnetic waves and glass
A diagram of Professor Dr.-Ing. habil. Claus Meier: Window pane glass is
not permeable for the wavelengths of the shortwave UV radiation (< 0.3 µm) and longwave
electromagnetic IR radiation (infrared radiant heat > 2.7 µm). So the biggest heat transfer mechanism through windows is never (!) radiation
Only the wavelengths of light can penetrate glass. Therefore you can get sunshine in the room and fire protection from fire resistant
glass. The light of the fire is visible, the heat of the fire can not penetrate. Glass is opaque to IR-waves. Therefore lenses for IR-cameras
must be made not by glass but by IR-permeable materials like zinc selenide or sapphire.
The electromagnetic waves of the light which come in your room through your windows will be absorbed by the inside materials and emitted in the infrared wavelength. Light can heat your room. X-axis: Wavelength and transparency of the window panes. Y-axis: Intensity of the radiation. The heat is transported predominantly in materials by radiant heat (phonons, migration of the electrons). Two window panes filter more free solar energy than one. Double glazed windows will force condensation in the wall. Sealed windows increase the dampness in the room air. This increases the energy consumption for the heating. Therefore modern windows will increase energy consumption and mold attack. Energy conserving must look to traditional building methods of the historic buildings. Look to your poor neighbour's hut and similiar original buildings in the open air house museum. They show intelligence of experienced craftsman instead of worst practise of nowadays modernists. Enlightenment!
- My english lecture in a RILEM seminar 'Characterisation of old mortars with respect to their repair - Historic
Mortars - Characteristics and Tests', University of Paisley, Scotland, May 1999:
'Traditional Craftsmanship in Modern Mortars - Does it Work in Practice?'
(English)
My sketches of the RILEM excursion to Stirling Castle and the historic kilns in
Charlestown Fife, to Glasgow and other places.
- Decay of concrete and cement -
Rusty corroded and decayed reinforced concrete - example from Bofill's 'Antigone', the
socialists experimental suburb in Montpellier, France. Typical situationof synthetical joint fillers after few years of weathering.
The disaster with the constructions and building materials of the modern architecture, which destroy themselves. Wrong and correct repair
of rusty constructions of reinforced concrete.
- 
The author / Reference - my biography, references to some projects since 1979 (> 400),
official reference testimonials. Note: A click on my picture will download a 2,8MBwmv sample of playing me cello in the Christmas Oratory from J. S. Bach,
conducted by Marius Popp 2005 in Kronach (the city of Lucas Cranach)
- Building materials - The problems of the modern structural systems. They can damage the old house and its inhabitants. There are alternatives.
'The experiment of Lichtenfels': Increase of the temperature under different building
materials / insulating materials (4 cm) after 10 minutes of irradiation with a red light lamp. The materials from
above: Mineral wool, polystyrene, foamed glass, clay brick, wood fiber, gypsum cardboard, pine wood. x-axis: Time
of the irradiation. y-axis: Temperature in °Celsius.
Note: The Rth-values/U-values (= "U") are not common with the changes of the temperature and the practical effect
of the thermal insulation. The crazy joke: The
experts of R-values define their results without any regard of the time and amount of heating energy in the proof
before they start measuring. Heavy materials suck up and store huge amounts of energy. Therefore they can lose much more
energy than air filled insulation. Some experts neglect the free daily energy radiation outside the building from the sun and the surroundings in
their dark laboratory and soul too. Think about it, then you will detect the reality even if you are no doctor and only a normal stupid
guy.
Porous material like modern light bricks, aerated concrete, industrial or ecological thermal insulation are
technically very problematic. Mostly they prevent the capillary drainage of the materials by totally or partly lack of
capillary activity and with synthetic coatings, what causes severe problems of wetness and moisture storing: The
capillary pores of the materials are densed and sealed / 'insealated' by synthetic coatings. The transport of
water in materials by capillarity and by diffusion relates 1000 : 1! So if the capillary activity is blocked, the materials will
never get out the dampness and moisture. And in the case of front insulation this materials store every night much water
in by condensate: The lightweight materials have not any sufficient storing / store capacity for the
daily solar radiation and energy.So they are cooling very quickly by radiation change with the icy heaven after sundown.
And start to suck condensate from the cooling air outside during the whole night. Many insulating materials are toxified and
threaten the health with terrible poisons such as boron salt, fungicide, pesticide, insecticide, algicide. Mineral wool,
PUR (Polyurethane), expanded or extruded polystyrene, poly-icynene (open-cell polyurethane) sprayed-in spongy foam,
polyester, fibre glass / fiberglass, foamed glass or wood fiber, cementitious foams, perlite insulation, sheep wool,
cotton or cellulose wool, hemp fiber or hemp wool, linen fiber, coco fiber, seaweed, sea-grass, light loam, vermiculite - a naturally occurring mineral that may contain asbestos fibres!,
wood wool, newsprint recycling, cellulose flakes blown-in and sprayed cellulose are only some typical products
for failed thermal insulation which must be wet after more or less time. They give no better
thermal insulation than the traditional solid building materials like wood, brick and natural stone. An additional
front insulation will increase the heat consumption: by shadowing the wall behind. And all the poisoning and sealing
of the insulating materials will not help against humidity problems. This materials store humidity and condensate.
That makes the mold fungi like black mold, dry rot, mildew and mites, also lice, ants and beetles, mice and rats
very lucky. As soon as the cruel condensate has defeated the synthetic foils, the parasites will come! Besides
fiberglass and similar insulation materials can cause severe itching, inflammation and other harms. The clever
homeowner should not trust too much in all the computations of the theoretical thermal conduction / conductivity. Consider the sun power by solar radiation. Enlightenment!
Information to lime, brick, mortar and masonry:
- Mortar from lime and its improvement
- The restoration of plaster and painting on historic fronts - problems and solutions
- The most frequent errors with the use of mortar, plaster and paint of lime
- Renovation mortar systems according to WTA - a harmful and risky alternative for salty and damp walls (see image on the left, where this mortar system failed twice)
- Lime mortar of lime
- Plaster and mortar from lime at the ancient building
- Building materials for walls and masonry in the comparison - with many interesting and rare
building material tables - Important information for building in warm, hot, cool and cold, dry and damp regions.
Problems of modern building materials for restoration, which age by changing temperatures and dampness very
fast and which thereby destroy historical substance. Notice: Cement mortar is not permeable for water, so water is
trapped in the walls. Once saturated, the wall begins to erode.
.
- Careful and tender restoration and preservation - How to repair and restore the old buildings and constructions with traditional, innovative, sensitive, reversible and economical methods. In contrast to modern methods, which find the way to the old house by beautiful gifts of the industry to the staff for planning (professors, restorers, curators, architect, engineers) and damage it after some years. How were the historic buildings constructed, how the modern ones? In former times: Masonry and walls from stone (natural stone, break stone, brick and half-timbered framework). The plaster only with mortar of sand and lime. The coating a paint of lime and of natural oil. Everything to repair well. Today: Terrible brutalities from reinforced concrete, rusty iron, lime sand brick, plastics, porous bricks and insulation of foams and fibers. Everything badly to repair.
- Economy and restoration and Financing - Economic and financial questions concerning the repair of old buildings.
- If you need some more consultation: 250 EUR for the detailed answer to 1-3 questions by e-mail, 500 EUR for 4-10 questions, local consultation: 150 EUR for each hour of the consultation and the time of travel. Additional the costs of the travel. I will submit an offer if you want. Payment (Bank Account) in advance with the commissioning, for local consultations 70 %. You know why. Is this too much for saving a lot of money and misfortune during the restoration? You must decide. Please send me some pictures of the problems and the construction of your house with your questions and the voucher of payment, my answers will follow as soon as possible. More details in german language and my e-mail-adress here: Consultation. There are pictures of references too. If you want to book me for a Restoration/Preservation/Conservation Lecture/Seminar (example)- contact me by e-mail or telephone. Examples: Many Questions and Answers FAQ
Naturally I know that you are very cautious by spending your money. Me too! Your alternatives: You get any advice everywhere. You know the forum intelligence in the InterNet. Please try it, I wish you much luck! Two consultants, three solutions, four disasters. Wisdom of the industry behind, experienced craftsmen, super intelligent experts, DO-IT-Yourself, pensioner, curious neighbours, unemployed technicians, academic theoreticians, physicists, beginners, the very clever uncle and aunt. Isn't it?
That was it for today, I wish you much success! Or save all your money, let your house age in dignity and enjoy more holidays and expensive red wines.
Good-bye and come back soon!!!
(Also keep in mind your friends, which don't know these information ...)
Damp and Timber Problems - Independent Surveyor - www.pdoyle.net
Independent surveyor's site for Damp and Timber problems in Yorkshire and surrounding counties
German home page > Old Building and
Care of Historic Monuments Information < 
