The wood-destroying fungi in buildings in Estonia

From 2002 until the end of 2008, 633 private and public buildings damaged by wood-destroying fungi were inspected in Estonia. Most of the inspections have been carried out in Tallinn - 101 (16%) and Tartu - 89 (14%), and also in the counties around these cities - Harju and Tartu Counties. The analysis revealed that the true dry rot fungus, Serpula lacrymans, was the most common fungus (79%) in buildings all over Estonia. The next most frequent fungi were Coniophora puteana (7%) and different species of the family Corticiaceae (4%). The Estonian data were compared to the results of Finnish, Latvian and Norwegian studies. Occurrences of wood-destroying fungi correlated with the monthly mean temperatures while there was no correlation with mean relative humidity.