Sustainable construction needs monitoring

Sustainable construction is becoming incre­asingly important. If the natural building materials used in a building are uninten­tio­nally exposed to moisture and moisture as a result of moisture protection that does not function properly or is damaged by undetected influences, this inevi­tably leads to profound damage to the building fabric. Valuable resources are lost prema­turely.

The number of such cases is currently rising sharply. In large-volume timber construction in parti­cular, this can lead to dramatic cases of damage. The simple formula applies: the longer the moisture is exposed and the larger the structure affected by the event, the greater the damage. This develo­pment is reinforced by the incre­asing trend towards the use of flat roofs for extensive and more and more intensive greening, for roof terraces, for photo­vol­taics and now also for the storage of rainwater. Modern, i.e. used flat roofs can therefore practi­cally no longer be inspected from the visible side of the roof, as they used to be. At the same time, the rainwater on so-called retention roofs remains on the roof surfaces for longer and longer. Even in the case of minor damage, larger and larger quantities of water penetrate the structure faster and faster and damage the structure.

But how can a building be sustainable if it suffers considerable loss of substance after a short time as a result of moisture damage that is not noticed or noticed too late? And how can a building be sustainable in which exactly this scenario will inevi­tably occur in 30 or 40 years at the latest at the end of the mecha­nical service life of the water­pro­ofing?

So is it sustainable, respon­sible and forward-looking if we expose ourselves and, above all, future genera­tions to the great danger that our ecolo­gical buildings will have to be demolished or at least exten­sively renovated in just a few years, but certainly sometime in the next few decades, because moisture and moisture have caused serious damage unnoticed? And much more importantly: Is there an approach that can effec­tively avert this danger?

Yes. If we want to avoid what has been described in the first paragraphs, two things are urgently needed: precise, i.e. correct, up-to-date, complete and reliable infor­mation about the state of a building’s moisture protection and the willingness to translate the knowledge gained from this infor­mation into timely and planned action.

In fact, the trends in ecolo­gical construction described above, namely the incre­asing use of moisture-sensitive building materials, such as wood, and the incre­asingly inacces­sible and invisible laying of water­pro­ofing, which is so important for moisture protection, under­neath ever thicker wear layers, mean that the quality of the conven­tio­nally available infor­mation about the condition of moisture protection in a building tends to get worse and worse – so badly that it is that they make timely and planned action impos­sible where action is needed.

These connec­tions are not new. As early as 1995, the “First Building Damage Report” of the Federal Ministry of Building explained in detail that avoidable struc­tural damage can only be avoided if the level of infor­mation on the condition of moisture protection of buildings is improved by the use of suitable monitoring systems, today referred to as monitoring systems. This was combined with the appeal to make public funding of construction projects dependent on the develo­pment and use of such systems in practice. While the appeal was primarily econo­mically justified at the time, it takes on much greater signi­fi­cance and topicality in view of the current sustaina­bility and resource discussion and in view of the current ecolo­gical, sustaina­bility-oriented building trends. It is therefore hardly compre­hen­sible and, in view of the corre­la­tions shown, it also appears to be less than respon­sible if the majority of flat roofs of new buildings declared as sustainable are still erected without any devices for monitoring moisture protection, although unlike in 1995, there have now been tried and tested real-time monitoring systems for this task for years, with which water­pro­ofing damage is detected and automa­ti­cally located at any time. even where you can’t look otherwise. Such systems cost money. Not using them costs a lot more money in the long run.