To improve the energy performance of restored cultural heritage buildings, it is necessary to know the real values of thermal conductivity of its envelope, mainly of the facades, and to study an intervention strategy that does not interfere with the preservation of their cultural and architectural values. The brick walls with which a large number of these buildings were constructed, usually absorb water, leading to their deterioration, whereas the heat transmission through them is much higher (than when they are dry). This aspect is often not taken into account when making interventions to improve the energy efficiency of these buildings, which makes them ineffective. This article presents the results of an investigation that analyzes thermal behavior buildings of the early 20^th century in the city of Zamora, Spain. It has been concluded that avoiding moisture in brick walls not only prevents its deterioration but represents a significant energy saving, especially in buildings that have porous brick masonry walls and with significant thicknesses.

In the energy efficiency restoration, one of the most important aspects to consider is the loss of heat through the enclosing walls, for which constructive solutions are sought to improve their thermal performance, being usual to place a sheet of insulating material on the inner side of the facade, avoiding intervening on the outside, so as not to alter the appearance of the buildings. This fact is aggravated in the buildings built with brick factory, especially in those belonging to the Historical Heritage whose walls are raised with handmade bricks joined by mortar joints. This type of wall has a high porosity, whose immediate consequence is the absorption of a large amount of water, which is a good conductor of heat, which means that a wall saturated with water has a higher thermal conductance than being dry, increasing the consumption of energy needed to thermally condition the interior. Applying the current regulations, in order to determine the thermal conductivity of the mentioned walls, laboratory tests have been carried out on dry and saturated specimens and also on similar materials. The analytical study of the values obtained from the thermal conductance of the brick factory wall in wet state and in dry state offers data with important variations. The most immediate conclusions are two, firstly that it is necessary to know the state of humidity of the facades to determine the insulating behavior of the same and that to save energy and achieve an effective intervention, it is necessary to act on the outside of the walls, keeping it dry by applying treatments on the facades.

Covered courtyards are increasingly being adopted as a passive strategy for the climatic rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings. However, their thermal behaviour is strongly conditioned by roof geometry, local climate conditions, and future climate warming, aspects that have not yet been comparatively addressed within a climate resilience framework. This study evaluates the energy and thermal performance of three representative roof typologies for covered historic courtyards—glazed dome, glazed flat roof, and south-facing sawtooth roof—across two Mediterranean climates of contrasting severity (cold continental and warm–dry), considering both current and future climatic conditions (2050–2080). Additionally, two design approaches are compared: a baseline design (BD), based exclusively on geometric configuration and standard glazing, and an enhanced passive design (EPD), which incorporates improved glazing, controlled natural ventilation, and seasonal solar control. Dynamic simulations using EnergyPlus/DesignBuilder are employed to analyse heating and cooling demands, free-running thermal behaviour, overheating risk, and the climatic robustness of each solution. The results show that roof geometry constitutes the dominant factor governing the long-term thermal resilience of covered courtyards, particularly under future climate warming scenarios, while enhanced passive strategies significantly mitigate cooling demand and overheating in the most penalised typologies. The south-facing sawtooth roof consistently exhibits the highest climatic robustness under free-running conditions across the analysed scenarios, whereas the glazed dome and flat roof solutions display greater climatic sensitivity and benefit more substantially from the application of enhanced passive design strategies. Overall, the results provide quantitative design criteria to support resilient interventions in historic covered courtyards in Mediterranean climates under climate change.

Brick masonry walls in Cultural Heritage buildings often have problems caused by rising damp. One solution is to coat the walls with repair mortars, including macroporous mortars. Their function is to ensure that the wall has a lower moisture content than without the coating to reduce deterioration, prevent efflorescence and prevent damp stains. This article presents the conclusions reached on the behaviour of macroporous mortars with regard to water absorption by capillary action and the drying process, by means of laboratory tests carried out on brick and mortar specimens of a similar composition to the old walls, coated with macroporous mortars. From the study it can be concluded that these coatings can help to maintain a lower level of humidity in the masonry before reaching saturation.