Altamirano-Medina, H.; Davies, M.; Lai, K.; Mumovic, D.; Ridley, I.; Oreszczyn, T.
Year:
2007
Bibliographic info:
The 6th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality, Ventilation & Energy Conservation in Buildings IAQVEC 2007, Oct. 28 - 31 2007, Sendai, Japan

The avoidance of mould growth in dwellings is of worldwide concern. In England and Wales, therelevant Building Regulations guidance document recommends ventilation provisions to control bothmoisture and other pollutants in buildings. The performance criterion for moisture states that thereshould be no visible mould on external walls in a properly heated dwelling with typical moistureproduction. The relevant guidance document (ADF) further states that this moisture criterion will bemet if the Relative Humidity (RH) in a room does not exceed 70% for more than 2 hours in any 12hour period, and does not exceed 90% for more than 1 hour in any 12 hour period during the heatingseason. This paper presents initial exploratory results on the investigation of these performancecriteria, which is a part of a much larger study relating to RH in dwellings. A number of experiments ina tightly controlled environmental chamber programmed to maintain suitable profiles of RH levels andtemperatures which relate to typical surface conditions in dwellings in England and Wales have beencarried out.