InspectAPedia®   -   Search InspectApedia

Infiltec blower door test courtesy Steve Bliss - Solar Age Guide to Blower Doors & Air Infiltration in buildings

Building blower door tests:

This article explains the use of blower door tests to evaluate building air infiltration and tight compared with leaky houses.

This website discusses how to inspect, diagnose problems in, and install or repair building insulation & ventilation systems including air leaks, air infiltration, heating cost, heat loss, moisture, & interior stains.

InspectAPedia tolerates no conflicts of interest. We have no relationship with advertisers, products, or services discussed at this website.

Blower Door Tests for Air Leaks in Homes

Smoke test demonstrating air lea at a door (C) Daniel FriedmanHistory of Blower Door Testing

For decades, energy specialists have known that air infiltration accounts for one-third to one-half of a typical home's heat loss. Yet efforts to curtail convective heat loss in both new and retrofit building projects have been for the most part haphazard and not always successful.

The blower door test provides a scientific approach to identifying and controlling air infiltration (air leaks) in buildings. Developed in the mid-1970's at Princeton University's Environmental Studies Branch, the portable blower door successfully moved from the university to the construction industry and energy conservation consultant use.

The blower door also provided leads for active solar space heating, teaching contractors where they need to tighten the homes they build, and blower doors have added vigor to the home insulation and home weatherization business.

In Sweden pressurization testing is required by the building code; in Canada similar standards have been developed.

What is a Blower Door Test?

The heart of the blower door is a common fan, usually about 500 cfm (cubic feet per minute of air movement capacity), the same size as a typical 30-inch whole house fan. The blower door fan mounts into a door-sized housing that cleverly adjusts and seals to fit snugly in the main doorway of the building to be blower-door tested.

One type of blower door seals with an inflatable band around its perimeter. The unit then pressurizes (blows into) or de-pressurizes (blows out of) the house, typically to 50 pascals of pressure. This forces air to flow through cracks or leaks in the building envelope.

In the heat loss and air infiltration article AIR LEAK DETECTION TOOLS the energy team begin the building analysis with a blower door test to determine the starting point for a building energy savings tune-up. In that example case, the house leaked at 32 air changes perhour (ach) at 50 pascals.

Equivalent Leakage Area - ELA - is a Window Open?

Built-in instrumentation compares the air blown through the fan to the pressure drop across the blower door assembly (thus across the building doorway), giving a measure of the relative tightness of the house.

Charts or computers convert the pressure drop to an equivalent leakage area (ELA) - the size of a single gaping hole in the building shell that would result in the same amount of air leakage.

The equivalent leakage area (ELA) helps consumes understand the cumulative effect of the many small leaks that are present at a typical building as they may indeed add up to the equivalent of an open door or window on the building.

Air Changes per Hour - ACH - At What Rate is Air Leaking Into or Out Of the Building?

The computer can also generate an estimate of air changes per hour (ACH) of the house under normal winter conditions - that is, with windows and doors closed. The presence or absence of wind will, of course, change the ACH of a leaky home, as we discuss just below.

Air changes per hour (ACH) measures are readily recognized by building researchers and code officials and join R-Value as popular measures of the energy efficiency of a building. (See INSULATION R-VALUES & PROPERTIES).

Using a Smoke Test to Pinpoint Air Leaks & Direction of Air Movement: Infiltration & Exfiltration in buildings

We (DJF) use a smoke pencil or smoke gun (shown below) in buildings to demonstrate that even without a blower door test one can observe air movement in buildings.

Without a blower door to pressureize or de-pressurize the entire building at once, we can observe air convection currents caused by temperature differences at each building level, and we see air movement caused by various building blowers and fans such as furnace or air conditioing air handlers, bath vents, kitchen vents, whole house fans and similar devices.

Often there are surprises: significant leak points that were not recognized and air movement in opposite direction to that anticipated such as warm air moving down from a roof vent rather than up and out in an air-conditioned two story home.

What is a Blower Door Test Really Measuring?

Smoke test of an HVAC sytsem blower assembly (C) Daniel Friedman ... Smoke test of an HVAC sytsem blower assembly (C) Daniel Friedman

As our photographs above demonstrate (D. Friedman using a smoke tester to screen for leaks into an air handler cabinet), air movement through an opening in a building or through openings in the building's HVAC equipment and ducts changes dramatically depending on whether wind is blowing or not, or whether a fan is on or off in the building's HVAC system or ventilation system.

At above left the blower fan is off, and at above right the HVAC system blower fan was on. There was no air movement into the HVAC system until the fan turned on, but at with fan-on the leakage rate was significant, drawing moldy air from a wet basement in this particular case, blowing these particles into the living area upstairs.

In fact, the blower door really measures only one thing. This is the amount of air leakage that would occur if an enormous wind blew or drew with equal force at all sides of the house -- which of course never actually occurs.

Typically, the leakage rate at 50 pascals is extrapolated down to 5-10 pascals to find the ELA (equivalent leakage area).

Deriving the natural ACH (air changes per hour in the building) is the more artful step. The actual rate of air exchange depends on the interaction of the two driving forces -- the stack effect and wind -- with the shape of the house and the location of the cracks having an important effect on the actual leakage and thus the heating or cooling energy costs of the building

How Building Shape Affects Air Leakage

A tall skinny home in cold windy weather will leak more than a squat home in a milder climate with low or no wind present. Gaps open to north winds will leak more than gaps of similar size and shape that are buffered by porches or plantings around a home. Algorithms for predicting ACH are available and are continuously refined.

What is the Typical Rate of Building Air Leakage?

The best ACH algorithms still claim accuracy within 25 percent. For a rough estimate of normal air leakage at a building, divide the ACH at 50 pascals by 7.

How Should Blower Door, Air Leak, & Air Movement Tests be Used?

Smoke test demonstrating air lea at a door (C) Daniel Friedman


While the air change per hour and equivalent leakage area numbers help in research and sales, the blower door has a more direct and practical use for the tradesman intent on stopping building air leaks. Examples of this use are

at AIR LEAK DETECTION TOOLS.

In conjunction with a smoke pencil or similar smoke testing device, the pressurization allows workers to pinpoint the air leaks that will show up under normal winds and temperatures and thus to seal them systematically.

Air Movement Testing Without a Blower Door

Our photo (left) shows a test performed by website author Daniel Friedman demonstrating air movement under a building door. It is easy to demonstrate that a home with warm air heating or central air conditioning does or does not have adequate return air flow to the air handler.

In buildings with central air returns and room doors that have not been under-cut, or perhaps were doors were originally undercut but thick wall-to-wall carpeting has been added, blocking that air path, you may find that simply leaving doors open or ajar will significantly improve air-flow to the air return ducts and thus will improve room air heating or cooling - a step that also reduces heating and cooling costs.

Sealing Leaks in A Building & Equivalent Savings in Heating Cost

As reported in Solar Age magazine in the 1980's, James McGarvey, a licensed dealer with Canada-based Ener-Corp Management, Ltd., seals any gap that the smoke test reveals at 10 pascals, equivalent to a 9-13 mph head wind. Sealing anything beyond that, he said, is not cost effective. The ELA of a typical Victorian home, according to McGarvey, might be cut in half to 300 to 400 square inches, reducing the air infiltration rate to .8 or .9 ACH.

The annual fuel bill in a leaky Victorian home can be cut by 30-365 percent using this approach. A large old house will take 3000 - 5000 linear feet of silicone caulk applied indoors, and a variety of weather strips and seals applied carefully.

Also as reported in Solar Age, Princeton Energy Partners (PEP) took a slightly different approach. An outgrowth of Princeton University's Center for Energy and Environmental Studies - birthplace in 1977 of the first portable fan door - PEP offers franchised crews marketing and technical support but sells no products.

Franchised crews in the Eastern U.S. improve home energy efficiency by using a combination of infrared thermography and building pressurization testing methods to identify areas of heat loss and air leaks. PEP remarked that plenty of time is spent in the attics of homes where convective loops from wall partitions into building attics pump more heat out of a house than most people realize. Air infiltration is thus only part of the heat loss story.

The contractors then perform the highest priority procedures and leave the client with recommendations for additional savings.

Also see ENERGY SAVINGS PRIORITIES for our discussion of setting priorities when saving on heating or cooling costs at a building.

Here we include solar energy, solar heating, solar hot water, and related building energy efficiency improvement articles reprinted/adapted/excerpted with permission from Solar Age Magazine - editor Steven Bliss.

Readers should also see INDOOR AIR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT GUIDE which includes details about whole house ventilation systems. Our page top photo, courtesy of Steven Bliss, shows an Infiltec blower door test being performed at a home.

Accompanying text is reprinted/adapted/excerpted with permission from Solar Age Magazine - editor Steven Bliss.

Blower Door Testing Research

 




ADVERTISEMENT





Reader Comments, Questions & Answers About The Article Above

Below you will find questions and answers previously posted on this page at its page bottom reader comment box.

Reader Q&A - also see RECOMMENDED ARTICLES & FAQs

Question:

(Jan 13, 2015) Bonnie said:
If a home very tight home has high Co2 levels from it's occupants, does everyone feel affected in the same way? I was told my home had high Co2 levels because I have a tight house and no fresh air is being cycled into the home.

My son and I get asthma everytime we're in the house, but my husband who smokes and other people whom have visited and stayed have never felt any affects. Shouldn't everyone be feeling some kind of affects if in fact I have high Co2 levels in my home?

Reply:

No, Bonnie, people vary widely in how they react to CO2 levels. But you'll want to read about the reaction thresholds at

www.inspectapedia.com/hazmat/CO2gashaz.htm


...

Continue reading at CONVECTIVE LOOPS & THERMAL BYPASS LEAKS or select a topic from the closely-related articles below, or see the complete ARTICLE INDEX.

Or see these

Building Air Leakage Articles

Suggested citation for this web page

BLOWER DOORS & AIR INFILTRATION at InspectApedia.com - online encyclopedia of building & environmental inspection, testing, diagnosis, repair, & problem prevention advice.


Or see this

INDEX to RELATED ARTICLES: ARTICLE INDEX to BUILDING ENERGY SAVINGS

Or use the SEARCH BOX found below to Ask a Question or Search InspectApedia

Ask a Question or Search InspectApedia

Try the search box just below, or if you prefer, post a question or comment in the Comments box below and we will respond promptly.

Search the InspectApedia website

Note: appearance of your Comment below may be delayed: if your comment contains an image, photograph, web link, or text that looks to the software as if it might be a web link, your posting will appear after it has been approved by a moderator. Apologies for the delay.

Only one image can be added per comment but you can post as many comments, and therefore images, as you like.
You will not receive a notification
when a response to your question has been posted.
Please bookmark this page to make it easy for you to check back for our response.
Our Comment Box is provided by Countable Web Productions countable.ca

Comment Form is loading comments...

Citations & References

In addition to any citations in the article above, a full list is available on request.



ADVERTISEMENT