Weather-based indicators for analysis of moisture risks in buildings

Moisture is one of the main issues in building disorders. It can lead to microorganism’s growth, material deterioration and impact on energy consumption. A comprehensive overview on the scale of the country considering climatic conditions may be an important starting point for potential moisture risks in building analyses. In this paper, we present a method in which weather-based indicators are developed for a first outline of the potential moisture risk in buildings considering the main climatic sources of moisture. The proposed method is related to weather parameters, comprising two new indicators - in a total of three - that are plotted in the country map using Geographic Information System to spatially represent the risk across the country territory. The method is applied for Brazil, and results indicate high weather-based moisture risks in highly densely populated areas. The case study highlights the importance of the presented methodology as a first analysis of potential moisture risk on a country scale.