Global Performance of Sustainable Thermal Insulating Systems with Cork for Building Facades

Rehabilitation of facades may be carried out with the application of External Thermal Insulation Systems (ETICS). Their main contribution is the increase of the energy efficiency of buildings. In the literature, hygrothermal, impact and fire performance studies have been carried out on several systems with different insulation materials, such as expanded polystyrene, mineral wool and extruded polystyrene foam insulation. Due to the growing concern with the environment, systems are being developed with more sustainable and ecological materials, such as ICB (expanded cork). These type of boards are responsible for a negative impact in global warming potential, significantly improving the environmental benefits of their use. As these systems were recently introduced to the market, applications on site are very recent and their behaviour over time still unknown. In this research, the durability and global performance of more sustainable systems (with ICB) were analysed through an experimental campaign and compared with EPS (expanded polystyrene) systems. The results show that the systems with ICB obtained satisfactory global behaviour comparable with the EPS systems. The ICB sustainable systems analysed stood out in acoustic performance.