This three-day course educated participants on:

• Air tightness testing standards and code requirements
• the differences between residential and commercial air tightness tests
• building science and driving forces of air leakage
• test considerations and planning
• required materials and equipment

The workshop also focused on the setup and use of blower door equipment, and finished with a full live test of the CARSI building at Red River College, which incorporates diagnostic tools and analysis/reporting of the test data.

Background

Increasing air tightness in a building is now widely recognized as one of the most influential factors affecting the building’s performance in terms of energy use, comfort, indoor air quality, durability and even noise transmission.

Even though airtightness testing of residential houses is quite common, airtightness testing of commercial buildings is only now starting to grow.

Testing equipment is now evolving to measure a larger range of commercial building types; however, since this type of testing is still relatively new to the United States and Canada, there remains very few qualified personnel able to perform these tests to specific standards.