Blower Door Test: The Test For Efficiency

The generation of water tightness and airtightness in a home are the concepts that make it energy efficient. They are also two terms that, especially in the case of a passive house, mark the development of the entire construction process. In this sense, there are several ways to certify the building's capacity to maintain the interior temperature and create a watertight interior that will go hand in hand with the property's energy efficiency. In this case we speak of the most reliable and advanced test with which we ensure perfect control of the aforementioned scales.

How to do a blower door test

Which is why a blower door test is so important to your method, whether you are building residential, multifamily, business, brand-new building and construction or even restoration/retrofits. Professionals all over the market have long understood the necessity for far better ductwork sealing off, unit securing, and boosted in the house air top quality. This test establishes if it has taken place on a venture.

The rigor in data collection and execution of the process is essential to carry out the test. It is a house in which the structure has already been executed, exterior windows and doors have been placed and, in the same way, the exterior cladding has been finished; in this case, in addition, a fireplace has been installed inside the house. It is, therefore, in the first phase of construction in which we can evaluate the tightness of the set and, therefore, correct any leakage point that we find before continuing with the work.. The test itself is done as follows:

Premises of the property: from the data obtained and the measurements carried out, relevant conclusions can only be obtained if the object of study has been correctly evaluated. In this sense, a prior data collection is necessary regarding the characteristics of the house in relation to the volume, with the number of floors, the cubic meters that we find inside, the rooms, the maximum height, the number of windows, the number of entrances, if there is a hood in the kitchen, if there is a fireplace and what type, etc. Ultimately, it is imperative to take into account any scale that may influence the measurement of data relating to tightness and efficiency.

Generation of watertight space: To be able to correctly assess whether the house itself meets certain requirements in relation to the expected insulating capacity, it will be necessary to create the aforementioned hermetic environment. We will close windows and entrances in their entirety, as well as the chimney and hood to the extent that it will be closed while living in the same house, cleaning any remaining ashes that we could find inside the chimney itself. This way we will truthfully check the real leaks that may be in the house.

Placement of the Blower Door: When this type of tests began to be developed in the 70s in Sweden, the test was carried out by placing a fan in one of the windows of the house. At present it is considered that the best way to carry out the test is at the main access door. Sealing it as much as possible with an airtight canvas, the only connection to the outside is a large fan in the door itself controlled through an electronic device that has a pressure gauge.

Under pressure generation: When the fan is put into operation, it is established that it must extract air from the house by expelling it outside until the pressure difference with the interior is 50 pascals. This allows the air to force its penetration through any gap or gap that it may find.

Evaluation of the air renewal capacity: With the pressure difference at 50 pascals, we are faced with the standard measure to measure the renewals per hour of the entire volume of air in the home. Thus, the hermetic capacity of the home can be evaluated by studying what volume of air is leaking and is causing a leakage failure, this being the international measure that is taken as a reference. Thus, for example, to consider a degree of tightness corresponding to the passive house standard we should be talking about less than 0.6 renewals per hour with a difference of 50 pascals of pressure. It is considered in any case that up to 3 renovations per hour we are talking about a well insulated house.

Smoke machine: Since the air will then seek to escape from the house, with a smoke-generating machine from the inside, the vanishing points will be visible from the outside. This way we will know the exact points both outside and inside where an air leak is taking place.