RE2020 Thermal Study
Versailles, Île-de-France

In Versailles, heritage protection rules out external insulation on almost all of the old building stock, which shifts the entire thermal effort onto internal insulation, the treatment of joinery and the overhaul of systems. This constraint profoundly changes the equation: thermal bridges become difficult to treat, the risk of internal condensation must be studied, and the loss of habitable floor area enters into the economic trade-off. The town's public facilities and educational establishments, numerous and old, represent the area's main renovation potential.

Summer comfort is the sticking point of the RE2020 in Versailles: on exposed façades, the degree-hours (DH) threshold is quickly exceeded, all the more so in the south of France. Dynamic thermal simulation arbitrates between thermal inertia, solar shading and natural ventilation before the building envelope is fixed.