NORDTEST Project on Moisture Buffer Value of Materials

Building materials and furnishing used in contact with indoor air have some effect to moderate the variations of indoor humidity in occupied buildings. Very low humidity can be alleviated in winter, as well as can high indoor humidity in summer and during high occupancy loads. Thus, materials can possibly be used as a passive means of establishing indoor climatic conditions, which are comfortable for human occupancy. But so far there has been a lack of a standardized figure to characterize the moisture buffering ability of materials. It has been the objective of a Nordic project, which is currently being completed, to develop a definition, and to declare it in the form of a NORDTEST method. Apart from the definition of the term Moisture Buffer Value, the project also declares a test protocol which expresses how materials should be tested. Finally as a part of the project, some Round Robin Tests have been carried out on various typical building materials. The paper gives an account on the definition of the Moisture Buffer Value, it outlines the content of the test protocol, and it gives some examples of results from the Round Robin Tests.