Building airtightness

The 2002 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) already indicated the potential importance of airtightness. With the 2010 EPBD recast and its ambitious 2020 targets, there is even more pressure on these aspects since for most European climates and countries, good envelope and ductwork airtightness levels are necessary to achieve nearly zero-energy buildings.

Previous studies have compared the airtightness measurement of test enclosures utilising both the novel Pulse technique and the conventional blower door method.  Discrepancies between results of the two test methods were observed and it was concluded that differences either caused by wind or blower door installation integrity would have had an impact upon the results.

Building airtightness is a critical aspect for energy-efficient buildings as energy performance of a building can be reduced significantly by poor airtightness. The Pulse technique has been regarded as a promising technology, which measures the building airtightness at a low pressure of 4Pa by rapidly releasing a 1.5-second pulse of air from a pressurised vessel into the test building and thereby creating an instant pressure rise that quickly reaches a “quasi-steady” condition. However, questions have often been asked on the test viability due to the nature of the test.

Requirements for measuring the building airtightness have been proposed and included by many countries for national regulations or energy-efficient programs to address the negative effect of poor airtightness on building energy performance, durability and indoor environment. The methods for measuring building airtightness have continuously improved and evolved over a number of years.

Since the 1970s, many authors have discussed the impact of poor airtightness on building energy use, indoor air quality, building damage, or noise transmission. Nowadays, because poor airtightness affects significantly the energy performance of buildings, and even more significantly with low-energy targets, many countries include requirements for building airtightness in their national regulations or energy-efficiency programs. Building pressurization tests are increasingly used for compliance checks to energy performance requirements and may result in severe penalties.

Since the 1970s, many authors have discussed the impact of poor airtightness on building energy use, indoor air quality, building damage, or noise transmission (Carrié and Rosenthal, 2008) (Tamura, 1975) (Sherman and Chan, 2006) (Orr and Figley, 1980). Nowadays, because poor airtightness affects significantly the energy performance of buildings, and even more significantly with low-energy targets, many countries include requirements for building airtightness in their national regulations or energy-efficiency programs.

The French database of building airtightness has been fed by measurement performed by qualified testers since 2006. In 2015 and 2016, the database was enriched by 63,409 and 65,958 measurements respectively, which is 74% more than in 2014, making the total number of measurements about 215,000. However, residential buildings (multi-family and single dwellings) account for almost all of measurements, only 4% of tests are performed in non-residential buildings. Indeed, since 2013 the French EP-regulation requires a limit for airtightness level for all new dwellings.

This paper introduces a comparison study of measuring the airtightness of a house sized test chamber using the novel pulse technique and the standard blower door method in a controlled environment. Eight different testing plates have been applied to the improvised envelope of the chamber to establish different leakage characteristics. Each testing plate has a unique opening in the centre of the plate, achieved by obtaining a different combination of shape and thickness of the opening.