The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) has been fighting to protect historic structures since it was founded in 1877 to fight the highly destructive ‘restoration’ of medieval buildings being practiced by many Victorian architects of that era. So when it came time to ensure the integrity of its own historic Spital Square headquarters in London, the famed organization turned to GE Sensing & Inspection Technologies to help it monitor critical temperature and humidity conditions.
Young at heart: The results taken from GE’s monitors will be compared with measurements taken after SPAB’s headquarters, seen above, undergoes simple and inexpensive modifications to determine if the building has increased its energy efficiency.
Mike Parrett, the consultant building pathologist and SPAB trustee, explains, “We can view all of the measurements taken by the system whenever we have access to the Internet. We can quickly access environmental levels and trends within the building and/or drill down to specific measurements from specific sensors.”
Matthew Slocombe, project manager, adds, “We find the alarm thresholds very useful, as an e-mail is automatically sent to me and Mike if and when a threshold is crossed. This allows great peace of mind, as I know that any potential problem will be flagged up well before any serious damage or deterioration can occur.”
GE’s Hygrotrac system uses small wireless relative humidity (RH) and temperature sensors. The system was easily installed in each of the rooms of the Spital Square building and they are programmed to transmit temperature and RH readings at regular intervals to a central data acquisition gateway. The information is then accessible, at any time, to the project managers simply by logging onto a dedicated website.
The system was installed in December 2008 and has already yielded useful data for the project team, prior to the initiation of the modification work in May 2009.
* Learn more about GE’s work at SPAB
* Visit SPAB’s website
