Patent Document ID: 20080243444
Application ID: 11728774
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method of predicting transient hygrothermal behavior of an installed building component in a building wherein an interior environment of the building is materially affected by an environment exterior of the building, comprising: defining a performance characteristic of a building component that is affected by transient hygrothermal behavior of the building component; defining exterior and interior climatic factors for creating exterior and interior climatic simulation ranges for a building wherein an interior environment of the building is materially affected by an environment exterior of the building, wherein the climatic factors comprise temperature factors and relative humidity factors, and the interior climatic factors are a function of the exterior climatic factors; defining one or more non-climatic factors affecting the defined performance characteristic of the building component; inputting the defined performance characteristic, the exterior and interior climatic factors, and the one or more non-climatic factors into a commercially available transient hygrothermal simulation software program and creating a software model for performing simulations with the software program, which predicts changes in the defined performance characteristic of the building component, as a function of time, based on a selected initial as installed condition of the performance characteristic, selected exterior and interior climatic factors within the created exterior and interior climatic simulation ranges, and selected non-climatic factors of the one or more non-climatic factors; performing simulations with the software program, based on the created software model, to obtain output values, as a function of time, setting forth the changes to the performance characteristic that are based on: inputted initial as installed conditions of the performance characteristic; inputted exterior and the interior climatic factors within the exterior and the interior climatic ranges, and inputted non-climatic factors of the one or more non-climatic factor.