No matter the energy performance goals you have set for your new-build home, you will need to prove its performance through testing or verification. That’s where we can help.
Blower Door Testing
Blower Doors provide a way to quantify air flow and the resulting heat loss, along with a way to pinpoint specific leaks. Air Flow through a specific building can have a powerful impact on comfort, heating expense, cooling expense, and air quality.
Developed as a research instrument in the late 1970s, the Blower Door has evolved into an indispensable field tool for any serious analysis of building performance. A Blower Door consists of a powerful variable-speed calibrated fan mounted to an adjustable panel that temporarily fits in an exterior doorway. The Blower Door System measures the airtightness of the building envelope by simultaneously measuring the airflow through the fan and its effect on air pressure in the home.
We have performed tens of thousands of Blower Door Test, so you can trust our experts.
Duct Leakage Testing
Air leakage in residential forced air duct systems is now recognized as a major source of energy loss. Research by building science professionals has shown that testing and sealing leaky air distribution systems is one of the most cost-effective energy improvements available in new construction. Studies indicate that duct leakage can account for as much as 25% of the total house energy loss. The reason?
The conditioned air leaks out of the system before it gets to the intended room, and so the furnace or air conditioner must run longer to deliver enough conditioned air to the desired location. That means that with a leaky HVAC system, the homeowner uses more energy, and pays a higher utility bill, to heat or cool their home.
While Mechanical Codes have long required that duct systems be sealed, only recently have the Energy Codes started to require testing of that duct system sealing to quantify how energy-efficient that duct system is. D.R. Nelson has conducted thousands of Duct Leakage Tests since its introduction in the Energy Star for Homes pilot project in 1996.
We will work with your HVAC contractor by having them witness a pressurized test and injecting theatrical fog into the system. This will visually identify all of the air leakage in the system and help the HVAC contractor understand the detail with which all of the joints and seams in the system must be effectively sealed to meet or exceed the code standards.