Thermal performance of existing buildings in Mediterranean climate area

The topic of energetic retrofitting of built heritage allows to affront the multiple declinations of environmental sustainability (reduction of no renewable energy sources and minimizing of CO2 emissions in atmosphere, etc.). Although exist numerous studies concerning office or commercial buildings yet, the more problematic argument is the behaviour in summer of residential buildings which are also built heritage, above all for those belonging to Mediterranean basin. An national research in Italy is studying this topic, analyzing the energetic behaviour of residential buildings realized with traditional constructive techniques (in masonry) and with modern ones (frameworks of columns and beams in reinforced concrete constructed before introduction of first energetic rules). This paper reports first results of this analysis about the different thermal performance of residential buildings realized in different constructive wholes. Moreover, the study of obtained results will allow us to value if there are weaknesses in Italian law on energy saving for buildings characterized by massive envelopes, especially for those in Mediterranean climate area during summer time.