About 1,000 ductwork airtightness measurements performed in new French buildings: database creation and first analyses

In France, the current regulation on the energy performance of buildings (RT 2012) does not require ductwork airtightness measurement when the default-value is used in the regulatory EP-calculation. Thus, measurements are only mandated when a specific airtightness level is used in EP-calculations or required by a voluntary certification scheme. In such case, measurements have to be performed according to a national scheme regarding ductwork airtightness measurement. This scheme requires testers to be qualified and qualified testers have to annually declare their measurement results in standard record files. In 2017, we created a national database from those records. The database includes about 1,000 measurements that were performed, mainly in new highly efficient buildings.
This paper presents the national ductwork airtightness measurement scheme and database and gives some figures regarding main characteristics of the buildings and ventilation systems. Then, the paper analyzes the measurement results regarding ductwork airtightness classes depending on several factors, in particular building’s use, type of ventilation system and targeted class.
Although earlier ductwork airtightness measurements were only performed in non-residential buildings, we observe that the number of measurements performed in single-family houses and multi-family dwellings has significantly increased the last 2 years. They represented 76% of the measurements performed in 2016. Regarding ductwork airtightness performance, Class A is the most frequent result for residential buildings, which are mainly equipped with single-exhaust ventilation system. Class B is the most frequent result for non-residential buildings (office buildings, schools, and hospitals) which are mainly equipped with a balanced ventilation system. Those results only apply to the buildings of the database and cannot be generalized to all new buildings in France.