Wood is one of the most important construction materials and its use in building applications has further expanded in recent decades. In order to enable even more extensive and reliable use of wood, factors affecting wood’s service life need to be understood. More recently, a new concept to characterize the durability of wood-based materials and to predict the service lives of wood was proposed, based on the material-inherent protective properties, the moisture performance, and the climate and design induced exposure dose of wooden structures. This approach was validated on the decking of a model house in Ljubljana that was constructed in October 2013. Decay and moisture content of decking elements was regularly monitored. In addition, the resistance dose DRd, as the product of the critical dose Dcrit and two factors taking into account the wetting ability of wood (kwa) and its inherent durability (kinh) was determined in the laboratory. DRd was well correlated with the decay rates of the decking of the model house. Furthermore, the positive effect of thermal modification and water repellent treatments on the outdoor performance of the examined materials became evident as well as synergistic effects between moisture performance and inherent durability

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