# Moisture Transfer in Commercial Buildings Due to Air Leakage

> Air leakage through the building envelopes is responsible for a large amount of energy use. The US Department of Energy Windows and Building Envelope Research and Development Roadmap for Emerging Technologies states that, in 2010,…

- URL: https://essential.construction/files/information/white-papers/moisture-transfer-in-commercial-buildings-due-to-air-leakage/
- Publisher: Essential Construction (https://essential.construction/)
- Last updated: 2022-10-10
- Price: Free download
- Categories: White Papers
- File Type: PDF
- Division: 01 - General

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Air leakage through the building envelopes is responsible for a large amount of energy use. The
 US Department of Energy Windows and Building Envelope Research and Development Roadmap for
 Emerging Technologies states that, in 2010, air infiltration was responsible for 20% of primary energy
 consumption attributable to the fenestration and building envelopes of commercial buildings. Despite this
 fact, improving airtightness is not always recognized by commercial building owners, as they have been
 slow in acknowledging and diminishing the detrimental effects of air leakage on energy use, comfort,
 indoor air quality, and building material durability.
 The design and construction industry would benefit from a credible, easy-to-use tool that estimates
 potential energy and financial savings in a standardized manner so designers and contractors can give
 building owners compelling reasons to invest in reducing air leakage. In 2016–2017, Oak Ridge National
 Laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Air Barrier Association of America,
 and the US-China Clean Energy Research Center for Building Energy Efficiency collaborated to develop
 an online calculator. This user-friendly calculator is free to the public and uses the simulation results of
 the whole building energy simulation tool EnergyPlus and the airflow simulation tool CONTAM. In 2018–
 2019, the calculator was expanded to add moisture transfer calculations given that air leakage through the
 building envelope can have a significant impact on moisture transfer and associated impacts. Four more
 commercial building types were also added to the existing database of three building types as part of this
 update. This paper describes the procedure used to calculate moisture transfer due to air leakage and
 provides examples that demonstrate the moisture transfer for each of the seven commercial building types
 that are currently part of the calculator.