Validation of energy simulations of a sustainable wooden house in a Mediterranean climate

Wood has become an appealing solution in the building sector, to traditional materials such as stone, steel, concrete, and brick for several reasons: it is more sustainable, it provides good thermal properties, and allows for fast construction processes in dry-assembled applications. However wooden buildings in the Mediterranean area still are scarcely diffused, mainly due to social prejudices about their resistance to seismic events and doubts concerning durability and fire resistance. The paper focuses on the validation of an energy model of a sustainable wooden building that is the prototype of a research project aiming at producing advancement in the development of residential settlement models with solutions to implement in new single or multi-story buildings. The single-family building is located in the province of Cosenza (South Italy). The building was equipped with a monitoring system for the acquisition of quantities of interest for thermal analysis and was subject to an experimental campaign conducted in the summer of 2021. The building was then modeled in the TRNSYS environment accounting for the detailed modeling of solar radiation. Simulations were performed in free-floating conditions, allowing to validate the thermal model. Then further energy simulation allowed to evaluate the thermal performances of the building in different Italian localities, allowing to demonstrate the viability of wooded solution in a Mediterranean climate.