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Step 8: Mitigating Strategies

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Book cover Managing Indoor Climate Risks in Museums

Part of the book series: Cultural Heritage Science ((CUHESC))

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Abstract

Mitigating climate risks to collections and the building, or optimizing human comfort, includes improving physical properties of the building and often implementing a climate control system that fits the specific situation. In this chapter the improvements that can be made to the building envelope, to reduce the impact of the outdoor climate on the indoor climate, are discussed. This ultimately leads to the search for low energy climatised storage facilities. In which passive geothermal temperature control is combined with solar energy to allow dehumidification. Climate control at the object level is best realized by microclimates.

Actively changing the hygrothermal properties of the indoor air is done by air conditioning systems with the basic functions of heating, cooling, humidification, dehumidification, ventilation, and air purification (filtering). In smaller heritage institutes only specific functionalities are used by mobile devices, such as humidifiers or air conditioners to cool.

Large heritage institutes with large visitor numbers often choose to control the indoor climate using full climate control. This allows increasing precision in controlling the relative humidity and temperature and control over air ventilation, filtering, and air distribution of the entire space. The quality of control depends on the layout of the zones within the building and the HVAC systems. The long term performance of the systems depends on management and maintenance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the United Kingdom this is also called a building management system (BMS).

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Ankersmit, B., Stappers, M.H.L. (2017). Step 8: Mitigating Strategies. In: Managing Indoor Climate Risks in Museums. Cultural Heritage Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-34241-2_9

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