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Tests were carried out on lime-based mortars for the reparation of three types of limestone extensively used in French monuments (Tuffeau, Saint Maximin and Courville limestones). The stones differ through their physical properties, both mechanical and petrophysical. The study aimed to characterize the properties of air lime and natural hydraulic lime-based mortars and to compare them to the stones. The durability was assessed by accelerated ageing, pull-off tests and description of the fracture pattern on repaired samples. The results show that such mortars are not equivalent but both are soft, porous and capillary materials with low adhesive force. Compatibility and durability of the repair measures on the three stones are discussed on the basis of our data and according to some requirements taken from the literature

Construction affects our environment to a significant extent and therefore, there is an increasing request for building materials and products in both new and old constructions to be evaluated with regard to their sustainability. This concerns both maintenance and restoration measures in an increasing way. These measures are necessary to keep our built environment in a reasonable state and to enable us to use them in the future. This also includes the extension of the life time of buildings. In this contribution most promising methods and criteria to evaluate the sustainability of maintenance or restoration processes and products are summarized and explained using two practical examples of building life cycles

In a large majority of European countries, the amount of maintenance and refurbishment works represents nearly 50% of the total amount spent in the building sector. New requirements are being added to the necessity of maintaining or re-establishing the building stock's usage value. They are linked to the determination to reduce energy consumption, pollutant emissions, work site wastes, to improve the Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) and all the modern conveniences inside buildings. Two European projects, EPIQR (réf. nr.: JOR3-CT96-0044) and TOBUS (réf. nr.: JOR3-CT98-Û235), developed in the IIIrd and IV th framework programs put the foundations of a new generation of refurbishment decision aid tools. A structured diagnosis scheme covering the state of deterioration of the building elements, energy performance, indoor environment quality, functional obsolescence offer a new concept which helps architects and engineers to approach the building refurbishment with a global view of the whole process, to take informed decisions, to construct coherent refurbishment scenarii and calculate a reasonable investment budget in the very first stage of the refurbishment project. EPIQR project addresses residential buildings and it has been finished in 1998, TOBUS addresses office buildings and it is still in course. The support of these methods is a multimedia computer program. Several modules help the users to treat the data collected during a diagnosis survey, to set up refurbishment scenarii and calculate their cost or energy performance, and finally to visualise the results in a comprehensive way and to prepare quality reports. This paper presents the structure and the main features of the method and software

The EC funded project "Hardrock" has developed and validated a new portable system (DFMS) for directly determining stone mechanical features such as the "hardness" by measuring its drilling resistance. The test is essentially non-destructive, since stones can be tested, with only minor patching of holes ( Ø 5 mm) on exposed faces. With this system it resulted possible to obtain affordable and sensible data of the mechanical and abrasive properties of stone specimens and monuments and to evaluate the consolidating performance of applied conservative treatments. The DFMS has no competitors for its application in comparative tests "in situ", while further data are necessary to apply it to assess the cohesional properties of rocks in relation to their cube strength