Building Physics

Building physics studies the physical performance of a building: heat transfer, airtightness, moisture behaviour and acoustics, and the interaction between these variables in structure and installation. The field explains why a building condenses, drafts, echoes or overheats as a matter of physical law, independent of whether that behaviour is experienced as a nuisance.

A large share of the operational complaints FM receives — too cold, too hot, too noisy, damp — has a building-physics cause that operation or maintenance cannot fix. Without that knowledge, such complaints get repeatedly adjusted technically without the problem disappearing, because the cause sits in the building itself, not in how it is run.

• Is this complaint a building-physics defect, an operating issue, or a behavioural issue?
• Where in the structure does the moisture problem originate, and is the cause inside or outside the envelope?
• Which acoustic requirement belongs to this space function, and is it being met?

• NEN-EN-ISO 6946 and related standards for heat transfer through building elements.
• ISO 3382 series for acoustic measurement in rooms.
• Building physics research from technical universities on moisture and airflow behaviour.

• Comfort complaints should first be analysed as building physics before an installation is retuned.
• Retrofit interventions (insulation, air-sealing) change the moisture balance and can create new problems that did not exist before the intervention.
• Acoustic requirements differ sharply by space function; identical finishes can satisfy one room and fail another.

• Technical management and upkeep
• Space and workplace management

• Diagnosing comfort complaints by root-cause category
• Assessing retrofit designs for moisture and airflow risk

[Content pending]

• NEN-EN-ISO 6946 (heat transfer); ISO 3382 (acoustics); NEN-EN 15251 / ISO 7730 (indoor climate).

The standards section arrives in Part 7.

• Complaints about draughts or temperature automatically attributed to the climate system, when the façade or insulation is the cause.

The combination of heat stress from climate change and rising insulation levels in existing buildings, without matching improvements in cooling or solar shading, produces overheating that existing indoor-climate norms do not adequately cover.

• ISO 7730, ergonomics of the thermal environment.
• ISO 3382-1, measurement of reverberation time in rooms.