internal leakages

The air tightness of eight apartment buildings containing six to eleven units each on three or four floors has been tested with and without guard-zone pressure, i.e. with and without consideration of internal leakages. The layouts of these buildings varied: two of them had no central stairwell, in two other buildings, only some of the apartments were connected to the central stairwell, and the third type had all apartments connected to a central stairwell.   During these tests, two to eight BlowerDoor systems were used simultaneously to create guard-zone pressure conditions.  

The existence of air leakages in a building has been very clearly stated as an important reason for energy loss. The decrease in the efficiency of the mechanical ventilation has also been clarified. The global demand for achieving nearly zero-energy buildings makes the uncontrolled leakage paths even more undesired. Despite the fact that steady state measurements of in- and exfiltration rates offer a simple and easy way of estimating the airtightness level of an eclosure, a supplement to those methods might be imposed.