PÉCLETBuilding Physics
PÉCLET / Research / 024 min read

The dew point is a design decision

Condensation inside an assembly is not bad luck. Its location is set by the order of the layers, and somebody chose that order.

Building PhysicsMaterialsSimulation

Water vapour moves through materials along a pressure gradient, slowly and invisibly. Somewhere in the thickness of a wall the temperature falls low enough that the vapour present can no longer stay vapour. That plane exists in every assembly. The only question is where it lands and what is sitting there when it does.

Every wall has a condensation plane. Detailing decides whether it falls somewhere harmless.

Placed inside a vapour-open, drying-capable layer, condensate forms, migrates and leaves. Placed against a vapour-tight membrane, or at the face of a material that holds water and loses strength when wet, the same quantity of moisture accumulates year on year until something structural is discovered by accident.

This is why permeability sequence matters more than any single layer's specification. An assembly should get more vapour-open as it moves toward the direction it needs to dry in. Reverse that and a perfectly compliant build-up becomes a trap.

In climates where the vapour drive reverses seasonally — and, in cooled buildings in humid regions, daily — the assembly must be able to dry in both directions. Designing for one is designing for half the year.