The relationships between the extent of mould problems and physical building characteristics in high-rise apartment buildings

This paper studies the extent of mould problems in a high-rise apartment complex with sixbuildings located in suburban of Seoul, Korea. The complex is composed of 466 householdswith different stories in buildings. The apartment buildings have occupants complaints due tomould growth on interior surfaces right after the completion. The research team investigatedthe sizes of the mould infested areas in each household unit and analyzed them to find anypossible relationships between mould extent and physical building characteristics, such asfloors of the units, building orientation, number of exposed facades to the outsideenvironment and so on. Although the plan, building materials, construction methods are thesame in each apartment household, the difference of mould extent was found with buildingcharacteristics. One of the main findings is that the house units on the top floor have largermould infested areas than the ones on lower stories.