When we talk about energy and seismic retrofitting, we are discussing one of the services that best represents who we are today as a company and what journey we have undertaken. It is a service that combines technological innovation with concrete and measurable social impact, and we want to explain why it has become so central to our activity.
Why These Two Interventions Together
First of all, it is important to understand why we have chosen to integrate energy retrofitting with seismic retrofitting into a single service. They might seem like two different areas: one concerns energy savings, the other structural safety. But in the reality of construction, these two aspects are deeply interconnected, and their integration creates value that goes well beyond the sum of the individual parts.
Think of a building as a living organism. It has a load-bearing structure that is its skeleton, and it has an envelope that protects it from external agents like skin. When we intervene on an existing building, especially if it has a few decades behind it, we must take care of both the skeleton and the skin. It would make no sense to make a building perfectly efficient from an energy perspective if its structures are not capable of resisting a seismic event. And vice versa, it makes no sense to secure a building if its inhabitants continue to pay unsustainable bills because the building disperses heat like a sieve.
There is also a very practical aspect: when you open a construction site to intervene on a building, you have the opportunity to do everything together in a coordinated and rational way. Installing thermal insulation requires scaffolding, access to facades, specialized labor. The same scaffolding, the same access points, many of the same workers are needed for structural consolidation. Integrating interventions means optimizing time, costs, and inconvenience for condominium residents.
Our Concrete Experience
In 2023 we completed eighteen retrofitting construction sites, and these numbers tell a very specific story about our competence. Take for example the Palazzo Pellino Condominium in Sant’Arpino: we started work on January twenty-sixth, 2021 and concluded on February second, 2023. Two years of work on a building that is now completely transformed: seismic improvement, thermal insulation, new windows, heat pumps, photovoltaic panels with storage batteries. Think about what it means to coordinate all these interventions while keeping the building habitable, managing permits, coordinating suppliers, respecting the Superbonus timelines.
Or look at the case of Scirocco Giovanni in Pontelatone: a single dwelling where we started work on February tenth, 2022 and concluded already on January twelfth, 2023. Eleven months for a complete intervention that radically transformed the performance and safety of the dwelling. This speed is not accidental: it is the result of a proven methodology, well-coordinated teams, planning that anticipates problems before they manifest.
How Seismic Improvement Works
We want to explain clearly what we concretely do when we talk about seismic improvement, because often this aspect remains somewhat mysterious for those not in the sector. Italy is a high seismic risk country, and many of the buildings constructed before the nineteen eighties do not meet the safety standards that we today consider essential. This does not mean they are necessarily dangerous, but that they could behave poorly in the event of a significant earthquake.
When we intervene on a building, the first thing we do is a complete diagnosis. Structural engineers analyze the building in minute detail: how the foundations are made, how the parts of the building are connected to each other, what the points of greatest vulnerability are. This is called seismic vulnerability analysis and it is the basis on which we build the entire intervention.
The interventions we carry out vary depending on the specific characteristics of the building, but there are some recurring elements. We often work on improving the connections between structural elements. A building must behave as a single entity during an earthquake, not as many separate parts moving in an uncoordinated way. We create or strengthen connections between floors and walls, between perpendicular walls, between vertical structure and foundations. We use modern techniques such as inserting metal ties, applying carbon fiber reinforcements, injecting special mortars. These are very technical interventions but they make an enormous difference in the building’s behavior during a seismic event.
Energy Retrofitting Explained Well
Let us now move to the energy part, which is perhaps the one that clients perceive most immediately in its daily benefits. When we talk about energy efficiency, we are talking about transforming a building from energy-guzzling to efficient, drastically reducing the energy requirement for heating, cooling, and domestic hot water production.
The heart of this intervention is thermal insulation. Imagine going out in winter with a light t-shirt: you will be cold and will have to burn many calories to maintain body temperature. Now imagine wearing a well-insulated coat: you will maintain heat with much less energy. This is exactly what thermal insulation does for a building. We apply an insulating layer on external facades, typically expanded polystyrene or rock wool, which enormously reduces heat dispersion through walls. We are not talking about small improvements: good thermal insulation can reduce thermal losses by as much as sixty to seventy percent.
But the thermal insulation alone is not enough if the heat then escapes through the windows. That is why we always replace fixtures with high-performance models: double or triple glazing, thermally insulated frames, efficient seals. A modern window disperses a fraction of the energy that a window from the nineteen seventies or eighties dispersed.
At this point we have an efficient envelope, but we must also deal with how we produce the necessary heat. We replace old gas boilers with high-efficiency heat pumps. Heat pumps are extraordinary devices: for every kilowatt-hour of electrical energy they consume, they produce three or four kilowatt-hours of thermal energy. How do they do it? They exploit the heat present in the external air (even when it is cold, there is still thermal energy available) and transfer it inside. It is like a refrigerator in reverse.
And the electrical energy to run these heat pumps? We produce it directly on the building’s roof with photovoltaic panels. The photovoltaic modules we install transform sunlight into electricity with efficiencies that today exceed twenty percent. The energy produced during the day is partly used immediately, partly accumulated in the batteries we install together with the panels. These batteries allow solar energy to be used even in the evening or at night, maximizing self-consumption and reducing dependence on the electrical grid.
The Process from Start to Finish
We want you to understand well how we concretely manage these projects, because the technical complexity is considerable and coordination requires experience and precision. Everything begins with a detailed site inspection. Our technicians visit the building, collect data, take photographs, take measurements. In parallel, they acquire all existing documentation: floor plans, original projects if available, current APE (Energy Performance Certificate).
With this data, our engineers and architects develop the feasibility project. This phase is crucial: we must understand which interventions are necessary, which are possible from a technical point of view, which are economically convenient. We calculate the improvement in energy class, verify the jump in seismic class, estimate costs and times. We present the client with various options, explaining the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Once the project is defined with the client, the authorization phase begins. Here our experience makes the difference. We know exactly which practices to present, to which offices, with what timelines. We handle CILAs (Certified Work Start Communications), Building Permits, technical certifications necessary for the Superbonus. We manage all relationships with the professionals involved: structural engineers, HVAC specialists, energy certifiers.
With authorizations in hand, we organize the construction site. This is perhaps the most delicate phase when working on inhabited buildings. We must minimize inconvenience for condominium residents, always ensure safety, coordinate with the various specialized teams that intervene in sequence: first structural work, then insulation, then fixtures, then systems. Each phase must be completed perfectly before the next begins, otherwise chain problems are created.
Throughout the construction site, we maintain rigorous quality control. Our site managers are present daily, verifying that each process meets project specifications, that the materials used are those agreed upon, that timelines are respected. This continuous control allows us to intervene immediately if something does not go according to plan, preventing small problems from becoming major critical issues.
The Results We Show
At the end of the process, we deliver to the client not only a transformed building, but also all the documentation that certifies the interventions and improvements obtained. The final Energy Performance Certificate shows the jump in energy class: buildings that were in class G are now in class A or B. This is not just a figure on paper: it means bills reduced by as much as seventy to eighty percent. It means completely different living comfort: in winter you stay warm uniformly throughout the house, in summer external heat struggles to enter.
The certification of seismic improvement certifies that the building is now safer. In the event of an earthquake, it will have better structural behavior, with lower probability of serious damage. For owners this also means increased property value: a building in high energy class and with seismic improvement is worth significantly more on the market.
But there is a result that for us has particular value, and it is the social one. With the Superbonus one hundred ten we allowed families who could never have afforded these interventions to transform their homes. We made accessible an improvement that before was reserved for those who could invest tens of thousands of euros. This was an extraordinary opportunity to democratize energy efficiency and seismic safety.
Looking Forward
The Superbonus as we knew it in 2023 is changing, percentages have been reduced, conditions have become more restrictive. But we continue to strongly believe in this service because it responds to real and urgent needs. Italian buildings have on average very low energy performance and significant seismic vulnerabilities. Climate change makes it increasingly important to reduce energy consumption. The seismic events that periodically strike our country remind us how essential structural safety is.
We are evolving the service to adapt it to new regulatory and market conditions. We offer modular solutions, allowing clients to choose which interventions to make based on available budget. We help identify all the deductions and incentives still available, because the landscape is complex and constantly evolving. We propose financing formulas that make interventions accessible even without the very high percentages of the original Superbonus.
What does not change is our approach: we listen to the specific needs of each client, we design custom technical solutions, we manage the entire process with competence and transparency, we deliver certified and guaranteed results. Because energy and seismic retrofitting is not just a technical service: it is the way we concretely contribute to building a safer, more efficient, more sustainable building heritage for future generations.