Project Feature: Military Housing

2018 was the third-wettest year the U.S. has ever seen and the team at Santa Fe was busy helping the U.S. Government, address and solve issues linked to the elevated humidity levels.  While there are always several contributing factors that lead to moisture buildup, multifamily housing poses a unique challenge due to the number of occupants living in a smaller space.  Case in point – military housing.

Military housing

In the summer of 2018, our team was contacted by a southeastern military base working to address reoccurring mold issues in their barracks. The total scope of the project consisted of six buildings, all built less than five years ago on slab foundations, and each containing 300 rooms. The single-room barracks also included their own bathroom and housed three people at a time for six week periods. Persistent, elevated humidity levels, beginning in the spring and lasting through the fall, typically resulted in minor mold remediation throughout the summer.  This is because conventional HVAC systems struggle to control part-load humidity during the shoulder seasons when the temperature is not warm enough for the cooling system to run extended periods, yet the relative humidity is still high.  This was compound by the ventilation system bringing outdoor humid air to dilute indoor air pollutants.

To further complicate things, there were extended periods of time when the barracks were unoccupied, which meant air conditioning was not needed for comfort.  Unfortunately, they were having to run the air conditioning just to control the relative humidity.