Wood, the material of tomorrow's retrofits

The construction sector has focused for many years on performance improvement of new constructions. Today's largest problem is the energetic retrofitting of existing buildings. The building retrofit is an important strategy for energy savings. Building retrofit is addressed towards the real estate in Europe and allows for substantial gains, especially for heating houses and urban densification.
However retrofit requires the use of special construction techniques. The problem is quite different from that of the new buildings: adaptation to existing building, heritage conservation, elimination of thermal bridges, etc.
In this context, wood is experiencing strong growth in its use in new constructions, due to its qualities. And we think that some of those allow more appropriate responses to retrofit than other traditional materials.
In this study, we will first present succinctly the problems related to the renovation, then we will dedicate ourselves to define the characteristics of the wood. The focus will be on some problems that commonly arise in wood constructions. We will then discuss a case, highlighting different characteristics of wood that are particularly important in this particular renovation. This allows us to observe on the ground the coherence of the choice of wood in the renovation. A discussion will close the study by summarizing the advantages and limitations of the use of wood in the renovation
This is not to show that wood is one of the most environmentally friendly building materials, or demonstrate the sustainable character of retrofit. This is to see that the timber construction systems can provide an adequate response to many retrofit issues.