Use of moisture-buffering tiles for indoor climate stability under different climatic requirements

Indoor humidity is an important factor for human health, well-being or damage like mold growth. Excessive indoor humidity conditions may be caused by non-adequate ventilation or temporarily due to change of temperature in rooms. The moisture buffering effect of linings and the resulting impact to air humidity are topics of this study. Special developed unsealed ceramic tiles and their capability to dampen the fluctuation in air humidity have been investigated, including the determination of relevant hygric material properties. A series of experiments in chambers were designed and executed to show summer and winter situations with temperature changes or different moisture sources. The resulting relative humidity in the chamber was monitored in the baseline experiment with no moisture buffer capacity as well as in the experiment with the installed new developed moisture buffering tiles. The experiment was validated and extrapolated to real room conditions, using a transienthygrothermal whole building simulation tool. The results show a reduction of relative humidity fluctuation, which attest the humidity-buffering effect of the material. The validation of the hygrothermal simulation with the experiment was successful. A hygrothermal whole building simulation demonstrates the damping of air humidity fluctuations for buildings under real usage conditions and in diverse climate regions. It is shown that thermal comfort conditions can be improved along with lower energy requirements for de-/humidification by using humidity buffering linings. A correct assessment can only be conducted with hygrothermal whole building simulation tools.