Evaluation of exposure conditions for wooden facades and decking: IRG/WP 09-20408

During their functional life, building components are exposed to moisture and other environment stress conditions in numerous ways. This is a fact that should be taken into account during manufacture, product development, designing and work execution of building components. For wood material, moisture stress and biological factors like mould and decay fungi are often critical in cladding and decking structure in exterior use conditions. For mould and decay development, different mathematical modelling exists based on laboratory and field studies. These can be used also for evaluating the different material properties for durability and service life of wooden products. In the future, the life time expectations and analyses of different building products will need more data on the durability of products, service life and resistance against mould and decay, not only data on wood material itself. The mould and decay models can be incorporated with climatic and building physic models to evaluate the effect of different exposure conditions on the durability and service life of wooden products.