workmanship

The content presented comes from the Technical Note (TN) 71 “Durability of building airtightness” published on Airbase, the AIVC bibliographic database.

A large social housing retrofitting program was implemented in Porto, Portugal, a mild climate region. One of the features of that program was the upgrade of windows and ventilation systems. An increased airtightness was expected and mechanical extraction on kitchens and bathrooms was implemented. This work analyses the changes in building airtightness that resulted from that renovation.

A cautionary tale of what happens when the entire construction and development system breaks down.

Good airtightness of a building can be achieved by the incorporation of an inner sealing layerfor the exterior walls and roofs in the form of a plastic film, which also serves as a vapourbarrier. However, if it is not wished to use plastic film as an inner sealing layer, thenairtightness must be effected through the use of other materials or in some other way. Thisproject has been concerned with investigation of a number of alternatives.