Mar 8 2004
Versaperm Limited, a world leader in water vapour permeability measurement, produces a fast, accurate, versatile instrument for measuring the water vapour transmission rates of everything from breathable renders to full vapour barriers. It is ideal for paints, panels and entire building systems
Water vapour is omnipresent and highly invasive. Lack of inappropriate "Breathability" of building products can not just cause rot, damp and structural failure, but has been associated with sick building syndrome and the rise of asthma and allergies. Permeability is one of the most widely needed measurements on everything from roofing through to walls and floors.
The Versaperm WVTR (Water Vapour Transmission) meter can cope with several samples at a time and can give a reading in as little as 30 minutes - whereas the conventionally gravimetric measurement technique takes several days and is significantly less accurate.
The WVTR meter is simple to use and gives a series of digital readouts that can be recorded or simply read off the LCD screen. It needs no re-calibration and requires, at most, minimal training to give results that are accurate to better than one part per million (with some samples a few parts per hundred million). Sensitivities are in the range 0.05 - 3200g/m2/day.
A wide range of variations is available, depending on the specific application, but both single and multi-sample systems and a wide range of chambers and accessories is available for testing samples from the size of a thimble up to a section of a wall.
As well as vapour transmission, the equipment can be used to measure the Equilibrium Relative Humidity (ERH) of substances from plastics to muesli - that might otherwise be decomposed by normal water content measuring techniques
Source: Versaperm