Research Reports are technical reports written for researchers but accessible to design professionals and builders. These reports typically provide an in-depth study of a particular topic or describe the results of a research project. They are often peer reviewed and also provide support for advice given in our Building Science Digests. The most recent documents posted are at the top of the list below.
Twelve affordable, healthy, environmentally responsible single family houses were designed and built on an urban infill in Dallas, Texas.
Humidity concerns in the southern humid climates are particularly difficult to resolve. This is because one of the most effective approaches to dealing with humidity in heating climates, ventilation, can cause major humidity problems in the humid south.
What relative humidity should I have in my home? Seems like a simple enough question. However, the answer can sometimes be difficult to understand.
Sealed attic construction, by excluding vents to the exterior, can be a good way to exclude moisture-laden outside air from attic and may offer a more easily constructed alternative for air leakage control at the top of residential buildings.
Ventilation air change rate, local mean age-of-air, and interzonal ventilation air distribution were measured for two single-family homes and eight ventilation systems.
Development and testing were conducted for a prototype phase-change material (PCM) wallboard to enhance the thermal energy storage capacity of buildings with particular interest in peak load shifting.
Two moisture-storage coating mixtures developed and tested between late 1990 and early 1991 could provide a low-cost, building-integrated method of managing indoor humidity in hot and humid climates.
A comprehensive literature review was made to investigate whole house ventilation system options, various simulation and engineering analysis tools and techniques, and baselines for comparing the current project results.
This paper discusses the differences between vented, unvented and conditioned crawlspaces. Best practice construction techniques and assemblies for conditioned crawlspaces are discussed, the results of a field monitoring program are presented, and the code language addressing crawlspaces is explained.
This report summarizes indoor temperature and humidity data that have been collected from houses by the Building Science Consortium of the US Department of Energy Building America Program.
Americans have been building homes with wood—shaping logs, joining timbers, nailing studs—for almost 400 years. Our current approach, stick framing, grew poplular in the mid-1800's because it too less skill, required simpler tools, and took fewer people than timber framing. We apparently really like waste haulers, too.
With rising utility cost, concerns over availability of natural resources, and environmental impacts of our energy production and use, a push has been made to design buildings to minimize energy consumption in an attempt to work towards more sustainable communities. Creating more thermally efficient building enclosures is a necessary part of achieving this goal. The thermal resistance provided by insulating a stud cavity is limited by the standard framing sizes currently used in the United States and Canada. The options therefore are to either increase the depth of the studs used, add insulation to the interior of the wall assembly, or to add extra insulation to the exterior of the assembly. Providing rigid insulating sheathing to the exterior of a wall assembly is a technique that has been used in cold climates for more than 40 years. Recently it has begun to be integrated into enclosure designs in all climates. As with any newly adopted technology, there can be concerns for its proper application. This paper examines methods of incorporating insulating sheathing into the thermal and moisture management systems of the building enclosure in a variety of climate zones across North America. This is done through examining the material properties of the various products and how these properties can be used to achieve an energy efficient and durable building enclosure design, while avoiding problems relating moisture accumulation and degradation of materials.
This paper examines methods of using hygrothermal models, primarily WUFI, to assess the impact of energy efficient enclosure upgrades on the durability of historical buildings. Means of producing and choosing input data for the hygrothermal simulation are discussed. Methods for using the hourly results from the simulations to generate a corrosion index and a freeze-thaw count are developed. An example wall is used to demonstrate the type of output that can be expected and how this can be used in making retrofit design decisions.
The overall goal of the DOE residential research program is to reduce average whole house energy use in new residential buildings by 30-90 percent by 2020, including homes that achieve zero net energy use on an annual basis. High performance space conditioning and control systems that match the high performance of Building America enclosures are necessary to meet performance targets. Conditioning systems with integrated mechanical ventilation and year-around temperature and humidity control are necessary. The most significant climate-specific need is for system-integrated dehumidification for humidity control without overcooling the space. Cost-effective dehumidification without overcooling will enable continued and further reduction of sensible loads (including high-performance glazing) that would otherwise exacerbate humidity control problems in humid climates.
This is a test form used in the Building America program to ascertain house performance and specifications.
SNAPSHOT stands for Short, Non-destructive Approach to Provide Significant House Operation Thresholds.
Exposure to sunlight (ultraviolet radiation) and moisture are the major factors affecting the durability of paint coatings and the durability of the substrate.
Good design and practice involve controlling the wetting of building assemblies from both the exterior and interior and different climates require different approaches.
This is one of eleven projects from the full report of Building Science Consortium’s research efforts for 2004. The research program is aimed towards advanced building systems that have the potential to reduce residential building energy use by 50-60%. It is based on evaluation of market trends, industry partner needs, and initial results from our team’s system engineering research program. A total of eleven individual research projects were detailed in this report. This project report explores the development of more cost-effective, integrated supplemental dehumidification
systems.
Construction practices have improved and the HVAC systems need to improve with them. The deKieffer Bypass relieves air pressure in rooms without compromising sound or light transmission.
