Different HVAC systems in historical buildings to meet collection demands

– Energy consumption modelling in historical buildings has been performed to estimate the cost of maintaining the desired indoor microclimate, with the emphasis put on the humidity stabilization for collections care. The chosen buildings represented various types of construction and interactions with the outside conditions. Performance of three methods of humidity stabilization was tested: portable humidifiers and dehumidifiers, a typical HVAC with cooling and heating coils, and an advanced HVAC system with a thermal and enthalpy recovery wheel. The results show that, using a recovery wheels based HVAC system, one can reduce energy consumption from 31 % up to 69 % depending on the building type when compared to portable devices and from 60 % to 85 % in comparison with an inefficient simple HVAC system.