A method for accurate description of coupled heat and mass transfer phenomena within wood-walls using linear, low-dimensional models has been proposed. The partial differential equations that describe the hydrothermal behaviour of the wall are first linearized, thus decoupled and finally reduced to a very low number of ordinary differential equations using a powerful method based on singular valued decomposition techniques. Progressive empirical and numerical validation illustrates the quality of the results.

heat and moisture transfer, linearization, model reduction, buildings.