Sharing this 1/4 part article and PDF via a link to the original on buildingscience.com
PA-1901: How to Look at a House like a Building Scientist (Part 1: Air)
Kohta Ueno
Effective Date
September 18, 2019
Introduction
The work I do for Building Science Corporation (Joe Lstiburek’s company, for those who don’t know) involves forensic investigations of moisture-related (or similar) building failures—i.e., sleuthing out problem buildings. Despite the fancy name, this typically involves crawling around the bowels of commercial and residential buildings to look at the problem areas and figure them out. They range from sleuthing out strange odors that seem to emanate out of nowhere, windows that leak water during rainstorms, indoor swimming pools with rotting walls, freezer warehouse buildings with icicles growing out of the ceiling, mega-mansions with out-of-control humidity levels that are damaging the art collection, and moldy and wet crawl spaces.