The Monitoring of the Indoor Environmental Quality of a Straw House in the Village of Pescomaggiore, L’Aquila

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is a central theme of scientific research on living well-being and indoor comfort. Since the adoption of air conditioning systems in buildings, IEQ has always been linked to energy efficiency; during the COVID19 post pandemic, due to the correlation with human health, the issue of air quality has regained autonomy in the performance assessment of buildings. Therefore, the analysis of the performance of the built environment in terms of environmental comfort as a central issue is fundamental for the future developments of this discipline. In particular, data about the thermo-hygrometric behavior of sustainable constructions and the environmental performance of green construction technologies are of great interest. This work presents the data and results from a monitoring campaign of the internal comfort of a straw house built in Pescomaggiore (Abruzzo Region, Italy) following the earthquake that destroyed the small village in 2009. The results show how, 13 years after the construction of the structure, the house guarantees the conditions of living comfort to the users.

I. Introduction

The Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) management was born 1.5 million years ago with the use of campfires in living environments, associated with openings for smoke to escape [1] . To date, the technological innovations related to air conditioning systems have followed the evolution of construction techniques, influencing each other.