Moisture in walls before and after internal wall insulation: a long-term in-situ dataset

Abstract

This work addresses the need for long-term, high-resolution, in-situ datasets by providing in-wall humidity and temperature data from three walls of in-use office buildings over three to four years, two of which were insulated during this period. Temperature and humidity sensors were inserted diagonally into three locations within the thick brick walls, and the holes were carefully packed with dry brick dust. Surface, ambient and interstitial measurements were also recorded, as were additional climatic data during 18 months at one wall, and in-wall moisture content using resistance pins for 18 months in another. This dataset is unique due to the combination of temporal length and resolution, spatial detail, as well as the availability of control data from both before and after insulation and the use of real climatic conditions on both sides of the walls. The experiment was designed to produce data to facilitate parameter estimation by inverse analysis. By using these estimated parameters, or by taking material property measurements, it would also be useful for validating and calibrating hygrothermal models, and by using plausible ranges for parameters it is useful for exploring model performance, such as through sensitivity analyses.