🐭 How Does A Blower Door Test Work

The air leakage test is conducted with a blower door testing kit. While the equipment to perform the test is installed and operating, inspections can reveal the source of excessive leakage. When the house is depressurized, a smoke candle can be used to find leakage at likely sources, such as around doors, windows, baseboards, and electrical A blower door is simply a diagnostic tool used to measure how much air filters out of your house (your home's "airtightness"). The blower door allows testers to apply a consistent and measurable pressure to the house so that houses can be compared accurately. You undoubtedly have called this professional because you have perceived issues in An air change is when a volume of air equal to the volume of the house exchanges with outside air. One ACH, then, means all the air in the house exchanges once per hour. With the Blower Door running and the house pressure at negative 50 Pascals, a typical existing home might leak at the rate of 15 air changes per hour, which is written 15 ACH50. Blower Door Testing with Infrared: For new construction we perform a simple Blower Door Test to ensure that the house is code compliant. While one can also perform this test only on an existing house, there is just one small issue – it only tells you how leaky it is, not where the leaks are. Granted you can use the back of the hand method, a A blower door test is a diagnostic procedure performed by a certified professional to identify air leakage in a building. The test simulates a 20-mile-per-hour wind blowing on the top, the bottom, and all sides of a home or building. Wherever air can enter through gaps, cracks, or other voids, it will. The blower door test is an important tool There’s a chance the mode or blend door actuator may be good but the door or linkage is binding, so check it before you replace the actuator (photo above). If the door binds, take it to a pro for replacement. However, if it moves smoothly, buy a new blend door actuator from the dealer or auto parts store. Install it and test the operation. The Test: In essence the test is done by setting up a blower door like the one above to depressurize the house to 50 Pa (Pascals) with respect to the outside. We get a number of how much air it takes to keep the house / building at that level and convert it to an ACH or Air Change per Hour Reading to see if you pass or fail. Work performed in existing buildings generally does not trigger a blower door test unless the work area is thermally isolated from existing construction. The reasoning is that since existing construction is not subject to testing, and may not comply with the prescribed infiltration threshold, testing both areas would potentially invalidate the rBLt.

how does a blower door test work