ABSTRACT

The renovation of a building envelope of a gypsum board manufacturing plant led to the creation of an extreme interior environment that was unanticipated and hence not considered appropriately in the design. After forty years of operation, the gypsum board dryer (dryer) was inherently "leaky", and years of manual adjustment to offset the deteriorating conditions in the dryer contributed to significant exfiltration of water vapour from the dryer into the plant. When a relatively air-tight building envelope was constructed in 1999, the high rate of moisture loss from the dyer produced an interior environment in the plant with saturated, high temperature air. The extreme interior environmental conditions lead, in winter, to excessive condensation, water damage, ice build-up and mold growth throughout the manufacturing, warehousing and administrative areas of the plant. 

This paper discusses how the basic principles of building science were used to create an innovative design solution in an efficient and cost effective manner, while maintaining the high-moisture environment demanded by the plant operators for quality control of the manufacturing process. From the preliminary investigation, through the manufacturing and budgetary constraints, this paper walks us through the theory, design and implementation of separating different environments within a building by creating an innovated solution to an unforeseen and damaging problem.