The blower door test measures how airtight your North Central Maryland or Southern Pennsylvania home’s envelope is. The “envelope” includes walls, floors, windows & doors, roof and attic areas—any part of the home that is a barrier between inside and outside air.
Shouldn’t My Home Breathe?
It’s true that every home needs fresh air to be comfortable and safe. Energy efficient homes control the flow of air in and out through mechanical ventilation, including bathroom fans, kitchen hoods and heating and cooling exhaust ducts. Uncontrolled air leakage through gaps, cracks and poorly sealed areas can rob you of energy dollars and make your home feel drafty, damp and uncomfortable. Undetected air leakage in the average York, PA area home can add up to the equivalent of leaving a window open all year long!
What Benefits Does a Blower Door Test Provide?
The blower door test will measure how much air leakage is occurring in your home. It is an important test that can later help a professional improve home air tightness by:
Pinpointing where outside air is leaking in
Providing data on ensuring the right level of ventilation for healthy indoor air
Ensuring that furnaces and water heaters are not leaking dangerous fumes into the house
How Does a Blower Door Test Work?
Our blower door test equipment consists of a very powerful fan that is placed in an exterior door frame. The doorway is sealed off using temporary barriers, all windows and doors are closed tightly and the HVAC systems are turned off.
When the fan is turned on, the blower door unit blows inside air outside and lowers the air pressure inside your home. The blower door fan has a sensitive digital manometer to measure when the interior air pressure reaches a certain point. While the blower door fan maintains this pressure, we’ll conduct other testing involved in a home energy audit.
Analyzing the Blower Door Test Data
Once the energy audit is completed, we’ll compile the data and chart the information using your utility company’s specific energy modelling software. With the data we’ve collected we’ll be able to measure the thousands of variables unique to your home. We can then analyze different combinations of improvements to determine the most effective approach to your home’s specific requirements.