Results Through Air Leakage Testing
How do you know whether a building’s walls and roofs actually separate the inside from the outside? We test it - the whole building, not just its pieces and parts.
For the last several years Blue Quality Services field services team have performed the ASTM standard test method for Whole Building Air Leakage Testing as a means of determining failure mechanisms of building enclosures, adequacy of design concepts, and as a metric of quality of installation. Some of the questions that we are able to answer with this test are:
• How many square feet are open to the outside?
• How does the building compare to the industry?
• Where are the holes in the building's exterior?
Ensuring Air Barrier Performance
Continuity of the air barrier system is a key indicator of its performance and one of the most significant functions of a building’s enclosure. An incomplete air barrier system allows unconditioned air to infiltrate into interstitial spaces within walls and roof systems. This unconditioned air leaking into the building has a negative impact on thermal performance – reducing energy efficiency, and is likely causing the formation of condensation within building assemblies – frequently resulting in water-related damage.Many times our consultants are asked to provide building enclosure design reviews and observational site visits during construction to observe the installation of the air barrier system. This way, we're able to catch inconsistencies within the air barrier system early so that when we perform the test, systems perform and the building passes.
How Common is an Air Leakage Test?
Whole Building Air Leakage Testing is so successful at identifying failures during construction that the US Army Corps of Engineers adopted it as a performance standard for their buildings several years ago. Since then, they have begun the process of “tightening” up their new buildings and increasing the construction standard to require a higher degree of construction tolerance. Currently, their air leakage rate requirement is to achieve .25 cubic feet per minute air leakage, per square foot of enclosure area when subjected to an air pressure of 75 Pascals. This is several times tighter than the air leakage rate for buildings not designed and constructed with air tightness in mind.
Because air leakage testing is so useful at gauging the quality of a building’s design and construction, we expect it to become a commonplace requirement for commercial and institutional construction in the future. Look for this test to be included in upcoming ASHRAE 90.1 standards for commercial construction soon.
Blue Quality Services provides Air Leakage Testing services for a variety of different buildings to either fulfill project requirements or because the buildings are not performing as expected. We have performed this test on a wide array of buildings nationwide ranging from new 100,000+ SF office facilities, dormitories, laboratories, cruise ship terminals, and flight control towers. Our technicians have been trained and certified by RetroTec, the world's leading manufacturer of blower door equipment.
For more information about this test and many others that we perform, including ways to incorporate this concept into your new construction project as a quality measure, give us a call at 877.986.BLUE.
