Influence of Orientation of Building on Indoor Conditions in a Roof Truss

Abstract

Protection of historical roof trusses is an important part of efforts to protect our cultural heritage. These timber structures carry a lot of information about used tools, technologies or construction processes. Roof trusses are generally threatened by many dangers, which could cause irreparable damage and loss of the carried information. Wood destroying insects and fungi are the gravest threat to historical roof trusses in our climatic conditions. Their spreading depends on several specific (interior) conditions. These include critical moisture content in the wood, relative humidity, amount of natural light and ventilation. In addition to these commonly monitored parameters (and their critical levels) we also must not forget the influence of local geography, biotope or orientation to the cardinal. This paper describes temporal fluctuations of some of the mentioned physical parameters in a historical roof truss with regard to external climatic conditions and orientation to the cardinal.

Evaluation of the Dependence of the Parameters of Internal Environment of Wooden Truss on the Orientation of the Building

“…This device is capable of detailed real-time measurements and recording of air temperature and relative humidity. Time accuracy of the data logger is ensured by an in-built radio receiver, which receives signal from longwave time signal and standard-frequency radio station DCF77 in Mainflingen, Germany (near Frankfurt am Main), [2].…”

“…Especially moisture (and humidity) and air temperature are important for the spreading of biological threats. More information about the indoor conditions suitable for spreading of the selected common (in Czech Republic) wood-destroying fungi and insects can be found in author`s previous work [2], in literature or standards, e.g. [1], [3], [4].…”