Performance indicator tool vs simulation tool

摘要

Building physical issues concerning moisture are not always handled properly as they should be during design. This approach can generate rather simple mistakes, which in the long-term perspective can and have caused serious damages. But even though the actors within design teams really try to make an effort the decisions made are based on information that is unsure or insufficient. The designers experience difficulties to adopt building physical theory in practical design work. Current and available tools are not adapted to their needs and therefore designers lack tools that can help them to predict the performances of a design. By using performance indicators the prediction process can be simplified which in this case concerns the service life giving rough estimations. By comparing the output of information when using the performance indicator tool, to a more advanced simulation tool, it becomes clearly that performance indicators are rather competitive. The comparative study, presented in this paper, involves a crawl space and prediction of service life.