Building airtightness: Research and practice

This report summarizes the state of the art on building air tightness by reviewing the current and recent literature on both research and practice. The focus of this report is on techniques to measure the tightness of the building envelope and on what has been learned by doing so. This report reviews over 100 of the most important publications relating to the topic. The report covered the fundamentals of air leakage including the hydrodynamics of leaks, which has led to all of the measurement techniques currently in use. The measurement techniques reviewed focus on the fan pressurization technique and its derivates, but the report covers novel techniques as well. Air tightness metrics allow data to be shared and compared and the basic air tightness metrics are reviewed and discussed as well as a brief discussion on norms and normalization. The bulk of the report discusses data which has been taken over the last twenty years and what it can tell us about buildings of different types, locations and properties.

[1]  G Proskiw.  Measured Airtightness of 24 Detached Houses over Periods of up to Three Years , 1995 .

[2]  Max H. Sherman,et al.  Residential ventilation and energy characteristics , 1997 .

[3]  G. K. Yuill,et al.  Protocol for field testing of tall buildings to determine envelope air leakage rate , 1999 .

[4]  Andrew K. Persily,et al.  Measurements of air infiltration and airtightness in passive solar homes. Discussion , 1986 .

[5]  Mats D. Lyberg,et al.  Analysis of air change rates in Swedish residential buildings. Discussion , 1986 .

[6]  Per Levin.  Building Technology and Air Flow Control in Housing , 1991 .

[7]  Jt Reardon,et al.  Methods for Measuring Air Leakage in High-Rise Apartments , 1990 .

[8]  Mdaes Perera,et al.  Airtightness Measurements in Two UK Office Buildings , 1990 .

[9]  Shin Hayakawa,et al.  Simple Test Method for Evaluating Exterior Wall Airtightness of Tall Office Buildings , 1990 .

[10]  David P. Yuill,et al.  Development of a Field Procedure to Measure the Airtightness of Wall Construction Elements of Houses , 1998 .

[11]  Max H. Sherman,et al.  Signal attenuation due to cavity leakage , 1988 .

[12]  Cy Shaw,et al.  Changes in Airtightness Levels of Six Office Buildings , 1995 .

[13]  Egidijus Juodis.  Energy Saving and Airtightness of Blocks of Flats in Lithuania , 2000 .

[14]  D. W. Etheridge,et al.  Crack flow equations and scale effect , 1977 .

[15]  Peter E. Nelson,et al.  Extraneous air leakage from window perimeters , 1995 .

[16]  G Proskiw.  Air leakage characteristics of various rough-opening sealing methods for windows and doors , 1995 .

[17]  Enno Abel.  Low-energy buildings , 1994 .

[18]  Radu Zmeureanu.  Cost-effectiveness of increasing airtightness of houses , 2000 .

[19]  Mark Modera,et al.  The Effects of Wind on Residential Building Leakage Measurements , 1990 .

[20]  M. C. Osborne,et al.  Fan Door Testing on Crawl Space Buildings , 1990 .

[21]  V. Altuzar,et al.  Atmospheric pollution profiles in Mexico City in two different seasons , 2003 .

[22]  R. N. Dietz,et al.  Multizone infiltration measurements in homes and buildings using a passive perfluorocarbon tracer method , 1985 .

[23]  Jeffrey E. Christian,et al.  The performance check between whole building thermal performance criteria and exterior wall measured clear wall R-value, thermal bridging, thermal mass, and airtightness , 1998 .

[24]  Andrew K. Persily,et al.  Myths about building envelopes , 1999 .

[25]  James A. Love,et al.  Airtightness Survey of Row Houses in Calgary, Alberta , 1990 .

[26]  K. Johnsen,et al.  Energy conservation in the built environment , 1979 .

[27]  Leif I. Lundin.  Air Leakage in Industrial Buildings—Description of Equipment , 1986 .

[28]  Max H. Sherman,et al.  A comparison of the power law to quadratic formulations for air infiltration calculations , 1998 .

[29]  Yuanhui Zhang,et al.  Infiltration rates for a new swine building , 1995 .

[30]  Ra Grot,et al.  Pressurization Testing of Federal Buildings , 1986 .

[31]  Pl Lagus,et al.  Air Leakage and Fan Pressurization Measurements in Selected Naval Housing , 1986 .

[32]  P. T. McGrath,et al.  Air infiltration from basements and sub-floors to the living space , 1996 .

[33]  Andrew K Persily,et al.  Envelope design guidelines for Federal office buildings:: thermal integrity and airtightness , 1992 .

[34]  M. Sherman.  Estimation of Infiltration from Leakage and Climate Indicators. , 1987 .

[35]  M. H. Sherman,et al.  Airtightness of U.S. dwellings , 1998 .

[36]  Max H. Sherman,et al.  A Power-Law Formulation of Laminar Flow in Short Pipes , 1990 .

[37]  R. J. Lowe,et al.  Airtightness in masonry dwellings: Laboratory and field experience† , 1994 .