Application of an IoT infrared sensor for thermal transmittance measurement in building renovation

Continuous measurement of building's thermal performance is relevant to guarantee a comfortable and healthy living environment with minimum energy consumption. The Comfort Eye, an Internet of Things (IoT) infrared sensor, allows to acquire continuously thermographic images and to perform a long-term monitoring in buildings. A mathematical model is applied to the thermographic images to identify the main sources of inefficiencies in building's envelope and to provide real information about the thermal behaviour of the facades. The innovative methodology, the Comfort Eye, can be used for relatively fast and inexpensive U-value estimation of façade walls without the use of additional measurement equipment (e.g., heat flux sensors). The Comfort Eye, scanning the entire walls facing the exterior, allows to identify potential thermal bridges and therefore it can be considered an effective tool to support buildings renovation for performance improvement. This paper presents the application of the methodology in real demonstration cases. The analysis allows to scan all the walls, measure the U-value, with discrepancies between the U-values estimated using Comfort Eye, and U-values estimated using the HFM of 0%-10%, in any point of an entire wall and to delimit thermal bridge as well as its area of greater influence.