The European Standard EN 15757 Concerning Specifications for Relative Humidity: Suggested Improvements for Its Revision

Abstract

The European Standard EN 15757: 2010 ‘Conservation of Cultural Property—Specifications for temperature and relative humidity to limit climate-induced mechanical damage in organic hygroscopic materials’ is a guide specifying the allowed limits of variability of the indoor climate, in particular relative humidity (RH) to preserve cultural heritage objects and collections composed of climate-vulnerable materials. This paper is finalized to provide useful elements to improve the Standard at its next revision, based on focused research. The methodologies and the mathematical tools used are performed on 18 case studies representing different buildings, climates, and use, including heated and unheated buildings, museums, churches, concert halls, archives, and storage rooms. The first aim is to compare the method based on the centred moving average suggested by Annex A of EN15757 with an alternative method based on percentile interpolation to calculate the reference RH values, and in particular the safe band of RH variability, as well as the upper and lower risky bands. It has been found that the two methods provided the same results, but the latter is easier to manage. The second aim is to verify if the duration of the record necessary for the determination of the safe band is really 13 months of measurements as required by the Standard to account for the specific request of the centred moving average with a 30-day time window. This paper demonstrates that the same goal may be reached with a 12-month record, but extracting from the record itself the two periods required by the time window, i.e., the last 15 days of the year will be copied before the start of the record, and the same with the first 15 days after the end. The third aim is to test if the particular choice of the width of the time window is influential on the width of the safe band, and to assess the relationship between the width of the safe band and the width of the time window. The results show that the safe band logarithmically depends on the length of the time window, so it is crucial to respect the 30-day window established by the Standard.