Conserving energy in historic buildings

With the dwindling supply of energy resources and new efficiency demands placed on the existing building stock, many owners of historic buildings and their architects are assessing the ability of these buildings to conserve energy with an eye to improving thermal performance. This brief has been developed to assist those persons attempting energy conservation measures and weatherization improvements such as adding insulation and storm windows or caulking of exterior building joints. In historic buildings, many measures can result in the inappropriate alteration of important architectural features, or, perhaps even worse, cause serious damage to the historic building materials through unwanted chemical reactions or moisture caused deterioration. This brief recommends measures that will achieve the greatest energy savings with the least alteration to the historic buildings, while using materials that do not cause damage and that represent sound economic investments.