ByggaF - A Method to Include Moisture Safety in the Construction Process

ByggaF is a methodology for including moisture safety in the construction process that was developed and presented in 2007. ByggaF comprises methods to secure, document and communicate moisture safety throughout the construction process, from planning to management. The methods involve a standardized way of working designed to meet the demands of society and the client’s requirements for moisture safety. It contains tools and routines for all actors in the building process; building developers’ requirements, moisture safety design routines, risk evaluation, moisture plans, routines for moisture rounds at the building site, routines for commissioning and moisture safety documentation. On request from the Swedish construction sector, ByggaF has been transformed into an industry standard. ByggaF was used in the first pilot projects more than ten years ago and since then it has been frequently used by the building sector in a number of Swedish construction projects. One reason for the broad implementation of ByggaF is that it is referred to in the Swedish building regulations, another is that the Swedish environmental assessment tool “Miljöbyggnad” demand for using ByggaF in order to reach “silver level” or “gold level”. To this date 144 moisture experts have been trained to use ByggaF and apply the standardized way of working to assure a moisture safe building process. It is difficult to quantify the effect of using ByggaF in terms of time and cost savings since moisture damages are never accounted for when planning a project, but based on our experience, many risk constructions and shortcomings during the construction have been avoided when using ByggaF. There has also been interest in using ByggaF expressed from other countries, both by Swedish contractors working with projects abroad but also from researchers in other countries. The industry standard has been translated into English, but in order to be applied in other countries, it needs to be adjusted to country specific conditions, such as regulation and building practices. In Finland, the Swedish version of ByggaF has been adapted to Finnish regulations and used for including moisture safety in real construction projects. ByggaF has also been adapted to specific applications such as construction of prefabricated single-family houses and renovation of multifamily houses.