Major moisture related problems have appeared in the North West and South East of USA and South West of Canada in the past few years. These problems have been catastrophic. Occupants have been required to evacuate their building, and health problems have been recorded. Moisture forensic studies performed attribute the problem to more than poor workmanship, as meticulous attention to details still has not completely resolved the reoccurrence of the moisture-related problems. This has prompted a review of the overall North American design approach on how building envelopes respond to heat, air and moisture loads. Several North American organizations such as BETEC (Building Envelope Thermal Efficiency Council), ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), ASHRAE (American Society for Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) and ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) have been developing a fundamentally new approach to the design of building envelopes with respect to hygrothermal performance. A load based approach with the inclusion of water penetration is been adopted.

Between November 1998 and March 1999, the Seattle Department of Design, Construction and Land Use (DCLU) and the Moisture Damage Committee conducted an informal survey of multifamily residential structures in order to assess the approximate number of moisture damaged structures in Seattle, the causes of moisture intrusion, and the cost to fix such damage. DCLU received 71 surveys representing 74 multi-story, multifamily residential buildings that were built between the early 1900's and the mid-1990's. Survey respondents listed interface details as the primary source of water intrusion, similar to the findings of the 1996 Vancouver, B.C. moisture damage survey [Rickett et al., 1996]. The Seattle survey also found that moisture damage was not limited to walls clad with exterior insulation and finish systems (EIFS), but affects all exterior cladding types. Fifty-one structures reported that the construction cost to fix damage caused by moisture intrusion totaled nearly $98 million, a figure that does not include the costs of investigation, attorneys' fees, and tenant and owner relocation costs. By combining the survey results with the number of structures into which moisture damage investigations have begun, it appears that approximately 20 percent of the multifamily structures built in Seattle between 1984 and 1998 are suffering premature building enclosure failures due to moisture intrusion."

• fungi: growth and growth model
• HAM: application

1. Advanced hygrothermal modeling of building materials using MOISTURE-EXPERT 1.0
2. Advanced hygrothermal models and design models
3. An educational hygrothermal model: WUFI-ORNL/IBP
4. Applied moisture engineering
5. Barrier EIFS clad walls: Results from a moisture engineering study
6. Boundary element analysis of uncoupled quasi-static hygrothermoelasticity for two-dimensional composite walls
7. Building enclosure hygrothermal performance study phase I
8. Drying capabilities of wood frame walls with wood siding
9. EIFS hygrothermal performance due to initial construction moisture as a function of air leakage, interior cavity insulation, and climate conditions
10. Hygrothermal system-performance of a whole building
11. Importance of moisture control in building performance
12. Influence of material properties on the hygrothermal performance of a high-rise residential wall
13. Integrated approaches for moisture analysis
14. Integrated hygrothermal performance of building envelopes and systems
15. Measurements and two-dimensional computer simulations of the hygrothermal performance of a wood frame wall
16. Moisture transport in building envelopes using an approximate factorization solution method
17. Position paper on material characterization and HAM model benchmarking
18. Simulation of indoor temperature and humidity conditions including hygrothermal interactions with the building envelope
19. Wind-driven rain distributions on two buildings
20. WUFI-ORNL/IBP - A North American Hygrothermal Mode