Moisture conditions of outdoor air ventilated crawl spaces in apartment buildings in a cold climate.

The effects of air change and ground covers on crawl space moisture balance in a cold climate are discussed in this paper. The objectives were to assess the suitability of outdoor air-ventilation in the crawl spaces of apartment buildings, to determine the optimum air change rate with and without ground covers, and the effect of the ground covers' thermal insulation on moisture behaviour. Measured data from the test building was used to develop the crawl space model in a modular simulation environment, where the parametric simulations were carried out.