Analysis of Damage to the Historic Roof Truss in Terms of Internal Environment

Abstract

The main threats that endanger the historical roof trusses in our geographical conditions are wood decaying fungi and wood destroying insects. For these threats to occur and spread across the historical roof truss, several criteria have to be fulfilled within the indoor environment. These critical criteria include wood moisture, relative humidity, amount of daylight and airflow. In addition to these monitored parameters and their critical values, we must not forget the impact of local geographical specifications and wider dependencies. This article is focuses on comparison of theoretical knowledge in this area with in-situ measurements of historical roof trusses on several reference buildings – churches and chapels in Southern Moravia. These were chosen due to their long-lasting nature and circumstances of the construction. The influence of specific local conditions (especially indoor environment) on the extent of damage is also examined in addition to general comparison.