Abstract
The use of CLT has been increasing the last decade, and a subsequently focus on documentation of the accompanying indoor climate and exposed wooden surfaces on human well-being. This study presents the results of a measurement campaign conducted over one year of a CLT apartment building in Grimstad, Norway. The apartment building consists of three floors with 35 apartments and comply with the Norwegian passive house standard and energy grade A. Measurements of the relative humidity (RH), indoor air temperature and wood moisture content (MC) were performed in the exposed CLT spruce panels in three apartments in two different floors. The results from the three apartments show a relatively small variation in the MC values regardless the residents behavior measured as RH variation through a complete year. Selected periods from a cold period (winter) and a warm period (summer) show the variation in relative humidity (RH) and moisture content in the CLT element. However, results from control measurements showed higher MC values. The gap between the measurements and methods are discussed.
Highlights
A need for more sustainable materials in the building industry to meet the goals to reduce carbon emissions has led to a bigger market for the use of wood in especially building structures
Since the resistance over two different wooden plank is different than if the sensor was mounted on one wooden plank only, this may be some of the explanation to why the measured moisture content (MC) values in Figure 5 and 6 are low compared to the control measurements presented in Figure 7 and 9 and Hygrotrac emc curve for generic wood [11].When the control measurements were conducted the relative humidity (RH) in apartment 1 were around 30 % and the MC values showed results around 10%, compared to the field measurements in Figure 5 and 6 that showed MC values around 7 % when the RH were 30%
The results presented in the control measurements show a significant higher moisture content of 8.0- 10.5 MC% compared to the long-term measurements presented in Figure 5 and 6 of 7.2- 7.6 MC% for summer and winter
Summary
A need for more sustainable materials in the building industry to meet the goals to reduce carbon emissions has led to a bigger market for the use of wood in especially building structures. Wood as a hygroscopic material has the capacity to adsorb or desorb moisture and moderate the relative humidity (RH) in a building[1, 2]. When moisture migrates in hygroscopic structures energy is released through latent heat phenomena, and hold a potential for contributing in the buildings energy balance [1]. The moisture buffering capacity and latent heat of sorption of exposed CLT spruce have been investigated by [3]. [4] argue that the potential of saving energy in buildings by the use of latent heat from sorption of exposed interior wood surfaces, is not significant enough to conclude it in the energy budget. The purpose of this paper is to 1) contribute to more knowledge of hygrothermal conditions in CLT buildings and 2) discuss measurement methods and field measurements of the hygrothermal conditions in a CLT wall element
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