Airtightness of Commercial and Institutional Buildings: Blowing Holes in the Myth of Tight Buildings | NIST

It is offen assumed that commercial alld institutional buildings llfe fairly airtight and that envelope air leakage does IIO! have a significant impact 011 energy consumption and illdoor air qualify ill these buildings. Furthermore, if is also assumed that more recently constructed buildings are lighter than older buildillgs. The/act o/the matter is that vel)'jew data are available 011 the airtightness of building ellve/opes ill commercial alld institutional buildillgs. The data that do exist show significant levels of air leakage il1 these buildings Gild do not support correlatiolls of airtightness with building age, size, or constructioll. This paper presents the airtightness data that are available and the limited conclusions that call be drawn/rom these data.