Blower Door Basics, Frank Spevak, The Energy Conservatory Good presentation on air sealing and
using a blower door.
Air changes per hour (ACH) is a measure of the air leakage of a building, calculated
using a blower door at a standard pressure difference of 50 pascals (a unit of pressure) between inside the home and outside.
Using blower door tests and infrared cameras, energy audits measure air leaks and detect air infiltration or missing insulation.
During a blower door test, all the windows and doors are closed, and they'll
use a blower door machine to depressurize the home.
Come and learn how to
use a blower door to assess the airtightness of your structure, a necessary step for achieving the Passive House standard.
Not exact matches
This DIY
blower door does not, of course, have the flexibility, ease of
use, and accuracy of a good commercial
blower door, but on the other hand its not that difficult to build or
use, its reasonably accurate, and it costs 1 / 100th of what a commercial
door costs.
This DIY
blower door uses a multi-speed furnace
blower for the fan and is fitted into a window rather than a
door.
The
blower door, which has been
used since the late 1970s, typically takes 15 - 30 minutes to complete and requires a trained operative.
We can eliminate at least 30 % our electricity need, reducing CO2 and other Greenhouse Gas emissions and create green jobs at the same time by subsidizing comprehensive Energy Audits (with
blower door tests
using infra - red cameras to detect air leaks) weatherization and retrofitting residential and commercial buildings (See Green consortium and Home Start legislation.
You don't have to worry about flow rate changing as the indoor to outdoor pressure changes, because the the furnace
blower flow rates (at least the ones I've seen) change very little over the range of pressures
used in
blower door tests.
This page covers how estimate the DIY
blower door flow rates, and then how to
use these flow rates along with the house depressurization measurements to estimate flow rates and air changes per hour at a 50 Pa house depressurization (the
blower door standard).
The
blower door test is a depressurization test of the house
used to calculate the natural turns per hour of its inside air,» says Orvis.
Similar to a home inspection that can reveal flaws in a property, Gallegos maintains that energy audits, where
blower door tests and infrared technologies are
used to diagnose the energy efficiency of a home, are an equally important tool for homebuyers because they can reveal areas in a home that waste energy which means higher costs.
They
used a thermal imaging camera to find leaks, then did a
blower door test and
used the camera again to show where additional leaks were.