Churches are old historical buildings often built of stone that carry a heritagethat is important to preserve for the future. It’s common that churches haveproblems with high relative humidity which also causes mold growth. Moldspores are found naturally in the air but require good conditions, such as highhumidity, materials to adhere to and a favorable temperature, to start growing.Attempts have been made to reduce the humidity in churches with varioushumidity-limiting methods. The purpose of this study is to investigate whetherclimate control methods can prevent the growth of church mold and control therelative humidity so that the results can provide guidelines for other churcheswith the same problems. Nine churches in north Gotland's pastorate have been used in the study. In threeof these, textile cabinets were installed in the sacristy for three different climatecontrol methods: humidity-controlled dehumidification, mechanical exhaustventilation and humidity-controlled heating element. These were measured overan eight-month period with a data logger that measured the relative humidityand temperature once every half an hour. Measurements were also taken fromthe respective sacristy. For the other six churches, measurements were taken bythe organ during a 12-month period with the same data logger. Then a moisturecontrolled dehumidifier was installed in only three of the churches in the middleof the church room. The relative humidity and temperature were measured onceagain in all six churches for the next eight months. The results from this study show that in the three churches where moisturecontrolled dehumidification was installed, the measured values were slightlybetter for both relative humidity and the risk of developing mold. In the textilecabinets, on the other hand, the values for both relative humidity and the riskof mold were slightly higher than in those for the respective sacristy. However,the values were somewhat more stable which is a good thing. The need to regulate the climate of churches will not decrease. Finding costeffective solutions for controlling the indoor climate is therefore important forpreserving their cultural-historical heritage.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-448173 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Trogen, Claes, Östlund, Patrik |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Kulturvård |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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