Humidity monitoring for restoration programme of an historic building, advice please.

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My partner is a trustee responsible for a number of historic buildings, dating back to the 1600s., which are in desperate need of refurbishment to remove inappropriate stuff that has been applied over several decades, such as external rendering, return the exterior to plain stone, chisel out concrete pointing, replace with the correct lime mortar, repair the interiors with correct lime plaster, etc. etc, and try to get on top of damp problems. Roofs, floors, you name it.

This is a project that will take some years to complete.

Their surveyor has said that she needs to arrange monitoring of relative humidity and temperature around the first building on the list, to understand the situation.

So we are looking for some inexpensive monitoring devices that could log such data for periods of at least a week, preferably longer, and provide trustworthy readings to be downloaded as and when the volunteers can access them. Internet connectivity via wifi would be a bonus, but not essential.

Any advice would be gratefully received.
 
Try Littlemore Scientific.
www.elsec.com

Littlemore Scientific (ELSEC)

Littlemore Scientific (ELSEC) manufacturer of scientific instruments, ultra violet meters, loggers, light meters, lux meters, humidity meters, UV meters
www.elsec.com www.elsec.com

I'm actually working for them at the moment laying hedges. LS manufactures from a farm in Dorset which is also run as a B&B and equestrian business.
They've been making environmental monitoring systems for historic building for 50 years. Should be exactly what you're looking for.
 
The Littlemore kit looks great, but at a price.

I have found other kit that looks as if it could do the job, for a tenth of the price.

This sort of thing: Portable Temperature/Humidity Data Loggers

The next step is to discuss with the surveyor what data is required, how it is to be interpreted, what value we may gather from it, then design the experiment.

These are really ancient buildings, which have survived for nearly 400 years, sometimes flood a few inches above the ground floor when the water table rises, but then it recedes, there is little if anything that can be done about that other than installing some sort of pump, that seems unlikely to be effective given the geology and quantity of water involved.

The main building is a Quaker meeting house, with oak panelled rooms, which I fear may not react well to modern ideas about humidity levels, likewise the fabric of the buildings, so also looking for independent advice from someone who understands and is sympathetic to such structures.

Rather than say that RH should be between 40 and 60, put in dehumidifiers, fail to understand that the water table can rise and fall (this is not flooding per se, just the natural rise and fall, which can compromise the timber floors at ground level every few years, then pass. Usually without much degradation, but when necessary be repaired or replaced.

However everything that we do is scrutinised by the powers that be, so we must be seen to be taking all the necessary steps to justify the programme of works. Which has tight budgetary constraints.
 
I’ve used the Ibuttons for long term temperature logging on Military / Civilian machines. They are great little units, self contained logger and battery units. They log for ages depending on setup, the software is free download and the kit to read them is cheap too. They are so cheap you can pretty much scatter them around the place and let them do their thing.
Edited, they do a humidity logger too.


iButton - miniature data loggers temperature humidity usb

iButton provide miniature data loggers to measure temperature and humidity, low cost, usb connection.
i-button.co.uk i-button.co.uk

52 for 'Ibutton temperature' | RS

uk.rs-online.com uk.rs-online.com
 
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Thank you all so far.

ISTM that we are in with a chance of finding some things that can do the job for £100 each or less. We will probably need at least four initially, but these must be readily usable by our volunteers who are not necessarily very technically savvy, so a simple on screen display that they can scroll through and phone us back the readings every week or so, a few per day, would be ideal.

Of course I and my partner could suck the readings out over USB or whatever and bung them into a spreadsheet, but realistically she or I can't visit to do that on a weekly basis, so a months worth of logging at least would be preferable. I suppose they could be posted back to one of us to download then returned and rotated.

Still not sure what practical use we may get from the data, other than a tick in the box, or used against us. Nevertheless it must be done, it seems.

As I said, these buildings have been standing for well over 400 years, albeit some really crappy but well intentioned stuff was done to them from the '70s onwards, which we know what we want to rectify sympathetically. However jumps have to be gone through, this monitoring requirement is just one of many such headaches. Then there are the bats to consider... And the correct stone slates to fix the roofs... As for the appropriate lime mortar, and finding someone local to apply it correctly ..

But we will do this properly, funds and grants permitting.. Just putting in a disabled access toilet was a nightmare. Septic tanks, etc. (fortunately done before they were banned.)

Please keep it coming, I'm sure there is an affordable and credible solution somewhere.
 
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