As part of the University of Edinburgh’s Innovative Learning Week, Jean Carletta and Dimitri Mignard, a colleague from the Engineering Department, are organising a day of hands-on activities to understand heating, comfort, and energy efficiency for churches.

On their website they say: “Victorian churches, whether they are used for worship or for other purposes, have a reputation for being cold and draughty. It’s no wonder – they were designed when people wore a lot more clothing than we do and preferred lots of ventilation because they were worried about catching diseases from each other. On the other hand, these buildings are everywhere and it would be a shame if they fell into disuse just because it’s too expensive to make them comfortable. This activity will look in detail at one specific premises that is warm, but expensive to run – St John’s Princes Street – to explore what makes people comfortable, how changes in controls might improve the heating performance, and just where all that heat goes.

We’ll be bringing a whole range of scientific measurement equipment so that we can answer some real world questions in this magnificent but hard to manage building. Join us for a day to learn about energy efficiency and contribute to solving problems that mix engineering, psychology, physics, architecture, and ICT. Students and people from the community who have an interest in how these buildings work will both be welcome.”

If you are interested, why not register for the whole day and be part of the action? Alternatively come along for the introduction to gain an understanding of the problems or just drop in during the day and see what is going on.

 

Details are as follows:

Where:  St John’s Princes Street

When: Wednesday, 19 Feb, 9:00-4:45, with a crash introduction 9:30-10:15

For more information and to register: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jeanc/ilw2014.html