Impact of moistened bio-insulation on whole building energy use

One of the key properties of hemp insulation is its moisture adsorption capacity. Adsorption of moisture can increase both thermal conductivity and heat capacity of the insulation. The current study focuses on the effect of moisture induced thermal mass of installed hemp insulation on the whole building energy use. Hygrothermal and thermal simulations were performed using the CIBSE TRY weather data of Edinburgh and Birmingham with the aid of following simulation tools: WUFI and IES. Following simplified building types were considered: building-1 with dry hemp wall and loft insulations, building-2 with moistened hemp wall and loft insulation and building-3 with stone wool insulation. It was observed that the overall conditioning load of building-1 was 1.2 to 2.3% higher than building-2 and 3. However, during the summer season, the cooling load of building-2 was 3-7.5% lower than the other buildings. It implies that, moistened insulation can potentially mitigate the effect of increasing cooling degree days induced by global warming.