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      Hygrothermal Monitoring of Replacement Infill Panels for Historic Timber-Frame Buildings : Initial Findings

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            Abstract

            Energy retrofits aim to improve the thermal performance of buildings’ external envelopes. With buildings of traditional construction there exists the risk that these improvements may lead to interstitial condensation and moisture accumulation. For historic timber-framed buildings, this potentially exposes the embedded historic timbers to conditions favouring fungal decay and insect infestation. Hygrothermal digital simulations can assess this risk, however these have limitations, especially regarding the study of historic and traditional materials, due to a lack of accurate material data. The research presented in this paper therefore utilizes the monitoring of physical test panels to examine the performance of four replacement infill details. These are, traditional wattle and daub, a composite of wood fibre and wood wool boards, expanded cork board, and hempcrete. The article focuses on the design and construction of the test cell and presents initial results from the first year of monitoring, following the initial drying phase. These showed no evidence of interstitial condensation in any of the panel build-ups, with increases in moisture content correlating directly with climatic measurements of wind-driven rain. Infill materials with low moisture permeability were seen to produce higher moisture contents at the interface with the external render due to the concentration of moisture at this point. Those panels finished in the more moisture permeable lime hemp plaster, overall present lower moisture contents, with reduced drying times. The use of perimeter, non-moisture permeable, sealants would appear to potentially trap moisture at the junction between infill and historic timber-frame. The monitoring work is ongoing.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            UCL Open: Environment Preprint
            UCL Press
            28 January 2022
            Affiliations
            [1 ] Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University
            [2 ] Dept. Architecture & Civil Engineering, University of Bath
            [3 ] Historic England
            [4 ] Formerly of Historic England
            Author notes
            Author information
            https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7779-6930
            Article
            10.14324/111.444/000118.v1
            8bcb46d6-4156-46e9-add3-74b39b24b8cc

            This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

            History
            : 28 January 2022
            Funding
            Historic England HE7585

            The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
            General materials science,Historic preservation,Architecture
            Moisture Content; Monitoring,Sustainability in architecture and the built environment,Energy Retrofit,Interstitial Hygrothermal Behaviour,Energy,Climate change and urban areas,Traditional Timber-Frame

            Comments

            Date: 07 May 2022

            Handling Editor: Dr Yasemin D. Aktas

            Editorial decision: Request revision. The Handling Editor requested revisions; the article has been returned to the authors to make this revision.

            2022-05-09 10:48 UTC
            +1

            Date: 01 February 2022

            Handling Editor: Dr Yasemin D. Aktas

            This article is a preprint article and has not been peer-reviewed. It is under consideration following submission to UCL Open: Environment for open peer review.

            This article is part of the 1st International Conference on Moisture in Buildings (ICMB21) Special Series

            2022-02-02 10:57 UTC
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