When building a new home or commercial building in Central Virginia, ensuring a tight pressure boundary is crucial for long-term efficiency and safety. Responsible House works with both builders and homeowners and offers full-service blower door testing. This essential test is required to be code-compliant, but we also recommend blower door testing as a part of the energy audit process before taking on a big home improvement project, like insulation and air sealing. `
What is Blower Door Testing?
Blower door testing is a diagnostic tool used to detect airflow in and out of a building. The process involves mounting a powerful fan in an exterior door frame, which pulls air out of the house, lowering the air pressure inside. Outside air flows in through all unsealed cracks and openings, making it easy to identify and measure air leakage. Blower door testing is not only required for new builds in Virginia, but they also:
- Improve Energy Efficiency – Air leaks in a building envelope can lead to significant energy loss.
- Code Compliance – Blower door testing is required for all new residential buildings in Virginia.
- Identify Air Leakage Paths – Our technicians have years of experience and can often help diagnose where the air is coming from, thereby making it possible to fix the leak and learn for the next new build.
- Verify Construction Quality – Blower door testing serves as a quality control check to verify that the building envelope was properly sealed during various construction stages like window/door installation, drywall completion, and penetration sealing.
- Improve Indoor Air Quality – A tighter building envelope reduces air moving through the building – which helps limit air coming from places that often have contaminants – like damp crawl spaces and basements or pollen-laden air from just outside our homes.
Our Blower Door Testing Process
At Responsible House, we follow a thorough blower door testing protocol:
- Preparation: We ensure all windows and doors are closed.
- Installation: Our technician sets up the blower door frame and fan in an exterior door.
- Testing: We operate the fan to create a pressure difference between the inside and outside of your home.
- Detection: Using thermal cameras and simply feeling the incoming air, we identify the locations of air leaks.
- Reporting: We’ll provide you with a report of our findings and recommendations for sealing leaks to improve your home’s energy efficiency and comfort.
Blower Door Testing is Required for New Homes in Virginia
In Virginia, new homes must meet specific energy efficiency standards, and blower door testing is a critical part of this process. The test ensures that new constructions comply with the state’s building codes for air tightness. Our team has extensive experience working with builders to perform blower door tests that meet all regulatory requirements.
Blower Door Testing for Retrofit Upgrades
For existing homes, blower door testing is an essential step in energy retrofits. Whether you’re adding insulation, air sealing, or making other efficiency improvements, knowing where air leaks occur helps us prioritize and effectively address these issues. This testing ensures that your investment in home upgrades delivers maximum energy savings and comfort.
Why Work with Responsible House?
We’ve been helping homeowners and builders with home efficiency since 1995. Not only do we have an extensive background in building and general contracting, we’re also building science experts who provide accurate and reliable results.
