Ecological buildings typically are made with a lot of organic materials, e.g. for insulation of the building envelope, and even in cold climates they are often built without the use of a vapour barrier. The paper describes such a house and field measurements of the indoor humidity conditions. A new model makes it possible to analyse the overall moisture conditions in a building by considering both the indoor environment and the building materials in constructions and furnishing. The model gives new analytical capabilities as it combines the analysis of the moisture conditions in the indoor environment with the analysis of the exterior building envelope. The paper demonstrates a comparison of the experimental results from the ecological house with predictions with the integrated model. It is then illustrated how simulations can be used to optimise the hygrothermal quality of building constructions by analysing the effect of: (1) Moisture buffering of materials, (2) Effect on perceived indoor air quality, and (3) Simulation of moisture conditions in building envelopes when the indoor climatic conditions is part of the simulation.
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