The Blower door test is the most effective way to check the construction quality and energy efficiency of a building.
Find out how airtight your building is – check the building’s density, save energy and improve the air quality in your space.
Did you know that small air leaks in a building can cause significant energy losses and increase heating or cooling costs?
The Blower Door test is a professional method to determine exactly where heat is lost in the cold period and cooled air in the warm period.
Our experts with 13+ years of experience in energy efficiency provide fast, high quality and detailed building airtightness testing using state of the art equipment (Retrotec blower door system, thermal chamber, smoke generator and other methods).
Comments are regularly made about the builder’s 20 years of experience and how well everything has been built. Very often it comes back to an inadequate test result.
To ensure a quality construction process on time, the right materials must be chosen and the construction team must be familiar with the manufacturer’s technology on how to incorporate the material correctly. Technology and materials change over the years and what was the case 10 years ago is no longer relevant today. All construction participants need to have an understanding of the construction process. The electrician also needs to know how not to damage the work of another. On more than one occasion, an electrician has damaged a vapour membrane in a wall while drilling sockets.
When is the right time to leak test new buildings? Before plaster finishing, when potential problem areas are visible and can be repaired. Once the finish has been applied, it is then necessary to assess whether dismantling and repairing will be worth it.
For existing buildings, the test can be carried out at any time as long as all the envelope elements have not been dismantled.
When you are ready to take the test you need to prepare everything for the procedure. Ventilation ducts adjacent to the building envelope, heat recovery outlets, bathroom vents must be sealed. Shower trays if they do not contain water. Electrical inlets in buildings, which are often in corrugated pipe through which air is also drawn. Fireplaces, chimneys must be sealed. It is also advisable to adjust windows before carrying out the test. These preparations ensure that any potential losses will be attributable only to the building assemblies and not to other factors.
Tests Building inspection ConsultingThe air permeability of a building is a building physical quantity that describes the quality of the building construction and enables the building to effectively control the microclimate and meet energy efficiency requirements. (clause 20 of LBN 202-19).
The Blowerdoor test provides objective information on the quality of the building and helps to find problem areas in the building structure.
The BlowerDoor test is necessary to determine the airtightness of a building – how well it is sealed against uncontrolled air leakage.
During construction – after windows, doors and other demarcation elements have been installed and sealed with tapes, before plaster finishing
For existing buildings, the test may be carried out at any time while the building is hermetically sealed and the windows, doors or other elements have not been dismantled.
The test can be carried out, but it is a non-standard situation, so the result may not be fully objective, but still informative.
For a private house, about 2 hours;
For industrial buildings, apartment buildings and other larger structures from 2 to 5 hours.
A good result would be one that is better than the regulatory or energy performance certificate calculation, but you can always do better. Experience has shown that a very good result can be achieved for any type of building with careful work by the builder.
Air permeability rate per surface area of the building envelope q50 = m3/m2h – indicates the amount of outdoor air per hour relative to the total design area of all building envelopes (external walls, floor, roof, windows) at 50 Pascal pressure difference between indoors and outdoors.
We will briefly and concisely inform you about the changes in the law and the latest developments related to energy efficiency and building management.
