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Mould growth risks for a Clay Masonry Veneer External Wall System in a temperate climate

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posted on 2023-05-21, 14:41 authored by Shruti Nath, Mark DewsburyMark Dewsbury, Kunzel, H, Phillipa WatsonPhillipa Watson
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nations have introduced energy efficiency regulations for new and existing buildings. This has been considered advantageous as more efficient building envelopes would reduce energy consumed to heat and cool home interiors to within accepted thermal comfort bandwidths. However, as these methods have been adopted, many nations have identified an unintended visible presence of surface and interstitial condensation and mould in new code-compliant buildings. In Australia, it has been estimated that up to 50% of Australian houses constructed in the last decade (2006–2016) have a presence of condensation and mould. Australia introduced its first condensation and mould-related building regulations for new homes in 2019. This paper reports on the hygrothermal and mould growth analysis of the most common low-rise residential external wall system, a timber-framed clay masonry veneer wall. A key component of this paper discusses the application of innovative methods in the Australian context. The external wall’s moisture accumulation and mould growth were simulated for a period of ten years using the transient hygrothermal simulation tool, WUFI® Pro, and the mould growth model, WUFI® VTT. This study identified significant risks for this typical external wall system when constructed in a temperate climate.

Funding

Department of Justice Tasmania

History

Publication title

Atmosphere

Volume

13

Issue

11

Article number

1755

Number

1755

Pagination

1-30

ISSN

2073-4433

Department/School

School of Architecture and Design

Publisher

MDPI AG

Place of publication

Switzerland

Rights statement

© 2022 The authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Residential construction design; Expanding knowledge in built environment and design

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