Water vapour distributes itself fairly evenly through a 160 mm layer of wool insulation during a 24 hour climatic cycle. The RH buffering performance is therefore limited only by its low density and consequent low water capacity by volume. A vapour retarder on the room side of the insulation reduces the buffer action of the insulation to p ractical insignificance.

Absorbent insulation will only have a useful influence on the indoor climate if the entire wall is redesigned to give a much more porous structure. This development would conflict with the custom of putting a vapour barrier or vapour retarder close to the inside surface of a wall. A more practical way of moderating the indoor relative humidity would be to use an absorbent interior finish instead of the customary gypsum board. The excellent performance of end grain wood as an interior finish is shown for comp arison.

The experiments reported here show the influence on the daily variation of indoor humidity of wool, vapour barrier and plasterboard, separately and in combination. Paint is not included in the tests. The response of a wall to a sudden injection of water vapour, as would happen in a kitchen or bathroom, is also studied. In this event the main moderator of the RH is the plaster board, while the wool insulation absorbs water slowly over a period of 60 hours. However, during this time, natural ventilation of a real room would already have moderated the RH. The contribution of the absorbent insulation is therefore only significant if the natural air exchange rate is very low. A low exchange rate is considered desirable to save energy but is also blamed for causing sickness because of the high indoor RH caused by human activities, which encourages microbiological growth. Any beneficial function of organic insulation must therefore lie in its ability to moderate the variation in RH within the wall while it releases moisture steadily to the outside to reduce the average indoor RH.

The risk of condensation within a porous wall without a vapour retarder is the subject of two experiments which are in progress. Only when these results are in, will the role of absorbent insulation be clarified sufficien tly to justify full scale tests of porous, absorbent walls.

• envelope: interior finish, drywall
• Whole building HAM

1. Non-isothermal water vapour transmission through porous insulation. Part 1: The climate chamber
2. Test cell measurements of moisture buffer effects
3. The role of absorbent materials in moderating changes of relative humidity