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Temperature and Humidity Data Loggers Help Investigate Moisture Damage at Apartment Complex

Graph 3 - Moisture Damage at Apartment Complex PROnset, a world leader in data loggers, today announced that forensic architectural construction consulting firm Richard Avelar & Associates (RA&A) has used 100 Onset HOBO temperature and humidity loggers to identify additional sources of moisture damage in a wood-framed apartment complex.

The monitoring project, which ran for five months, was aimed at investigating unexplained causes of moisture damage, wood decay and fungal growth found behind cladding and sheathing in certain ground-floor walls throughout the large complex.

RA&A principal consultant Lonnie Haughton said, “The data loggers allowed us to evaluate alternative explanations for the observed conditions and to greatly expand the scope and reach of our investigation.”

To track ambient conditions, Haughton and his team deployed the temperature and humidity loggers in 23 ground-floor apartments throughout the complex. The battery-powered devices were placed in a variety of locations, from interior hallways near kitchens and bathrooms to bedroom closets to exterior wall cavities, and simultaneously recorded temperature and relative humidity measurements every 10 minutes. More than 2,000,000 measurements were taken during the five-month period.

Midway through the monitoring period, and then at the conclusion of the testing, the collected data from each logger was offloaded and viewed using Onset’s HOBOware® graphing and analysis software, and then exported to Microsoft Excel for data analysis.

“Ultimately, the collected data helped us to identify additional sources and mechanisms of the moisture damage and decay that had been discovered within the exterior walls,” said Haughton.

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