• Moisture is mayhem

    More than any other issue in modern home construction, moisture problems deserve the greatest attention. Elevated levels of moisture in a building can lead to many serious problems, including structural deterioration and serious health problems for occupants. Needless to say, today these problems also have serious financial consequences for a homeowner – especially mold-related problems. In the past there was little consensus on how to best design and construct a building to avoid common moisture problems. Today, however, our knowledge of the interrelated causes of moisture problems in a home allow us to identify and fix the problems caused by the limited and incomplete understanding of the past.

    Moisture problems are caused by a number of interacting mechanisms within a home, such as heat flow, air flow, moisture vapor flow, building envelope design, site conditions and drainage, local climatic conditions, occupant behavior, among others. The deep energy retrofit (DER) approach considers the building as an integrated whole, with the explicit objective of creating an integrated design and retrofit plan that incorporates building components and assemblies that fix/prevent moisture problems while at the same time addressing the energy-efficiency requirements of the retrofit program.

    The DER program incorporates the latest building science knowledge and know-how in upgrading to a high-performance building, including effective building strategies to deal with moisture problems.