Thermal Diagnostics and Preservation Status Assessment of Selected Residential Buildings in the Bobrek Housing Estate in Bytom in the Context of Their Modernisation Potential

Abstract This paper presents selected aspects of thermal diagnostics of historical workers’ buildings in the Upper Silesian Agglomeration, which constitutes an important element of the industrial heritage of the region. Despite the quite exceptional significance of workers’ housing estates and colonies for the nature and shape of the Upper Silesian cultural landscape, their preservation is threatened. Residential buildings face progressive degradation as their parent industrial plants get liquidated. The study covers selected residential buildings within the perimeter of the Bobrek housing estate in Bytom – one of the biggest and most characteristic workers’ housing estates in Upper Silesia. This particular housing estate, built in stages from 1888 to the 1920s, demonstrates a full scope of the history of building patronal housing complexes in the region. Currently, like a drop of water, it accumulates all negative phenomena associated with the thoughtlessness and unplanned restructuring of industry, which commenced in the 1990s. The objective of the study was an attempt at assessing the preservation status of existing buildings accompanied by thermal diagnostics based on thermal imaging tests. This assessment seems to be of key importance in determining possibilities and scope of their preservation and effective thermal insulation. Furthermore, it offers a better insight into the degree of complexity of the problem associated with the need to preserve valuable industrial heritage in the scale of the entire region, while reducing operating costs and obtaining a significant reduction of pollution emitted by buildings.