On the potential of HAMSTER’s bi-climatic chamber for testing building component airtightness durability

Durability of airtightness – and more generally of thermal performances – is an important question at both building and component levels. Its assessment is complicated in practice mainly due to the logistical aspects of those long duration studies and experiments. One can conduct laboratory tests with artificial ageing or deduce information from repeated in-situ tests or data analysis of existing components. In this paper, we describe two projects relevant in this context. On one hand, HAMSTER is a new bi-climatic chamber installed in 2022 in Brussels. It has great potential to assess the airtightness of building components in various conditions including, but not limited to, its durability. Two main applications are identified: (1) measuring airtightness performances in specific climatic conditions and (2) assessing the durability of building components through accelerated ageing. On the other hand, PERCHE is a research project where airtightness of exiting old wood windows with heritage value is assessed through in-situ measurements using the direct technique. Additionally, the potential of improvement of different interventions is also quantified in that research.