The Hidden Risk of Green Buildings:
Why Moisture & Mold Problems Are Likely

The demand for LEED® certified building concepts has expanded exponentially over the past few years and is rapidly being incorporated into many new construction projects. This proliferation of new products and innovative building approaches is challenging the design and construction communities to go well beyond standard practices.                                   
READ MORE

Avoiding Moisture & Mold Problems in Florida Buildings:
Design and Construction Guidelines
featured in the Florida Engineering Society Journal, November 2006

Just months after occupying their new, multimillion-dollar municipal building, employees of a Florida county began complaining of chronic sinus problems, allergy attacks, headaches and asthma - classic signs of sick-building syndrome and building-related illness. The architects, engineers, and microbiologists tasked with...
READ MORE

Moisture Problems: Why HVAC Commissioning
Procedures Don't Work in Humid Climates
CH2MHill article featured in the Eighth Symposium on Improved Methods of Building Design in Hot/Humid Climates, Texas A&M University, 1992

Moisture-related damage in commercial buildings is a pervasive, costly problem in hot, humid climates. Excess moisture in buildings can stem from failure to control a number of climatic moisture sources, including rain, ground water, moisture diffusion, and air flows. A growing body of evidence indicates that the most problematic of these climatic moisture sources in hot, humid climates...
READ MORE

Avoidance of Mold: Designer’s Notebook

Architects and engineers need to consider the potential for mold growth in all phases of building design, construction, operation, and maintenance. There is potential to develop some mold in any building and in any geographical area. Because of the possible health risks of mold and the enormous costs of mold claims and litigation...

READ MORE

The Risks of Building Green in the Southeast

The great irony of building green in the Southeast is that it may substantially increase a contractor’s risk of lawsuits. Building green mens adding more wall and roof insulation, decreasing a building’s energy use, providing better ventilation, and using more organic products. Unfortunately, building scientists and forensic engineers who specialize in construction failures in hot, humid climates sty these green building features also create structures with...

READ MORE

Is Your Green Building the Best it Can Be?

“Most new products are experiments and most experiments fail.” –Quote from “How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built” by Stewart Brand (1994)
Stewart Brand’s caution in 1994 about using new products is engaging and even quite controversial, since progress can only be made through the use of new products and innovative approaches. Yet Brand’s caution echoes what forensic building consultants and building scientists have seen for decades; anything that departs for the “tried and true method” often fails. This finding is not surprising, since...
READ MORE

Press Releases