Air Pressure Testing

air pressure testing in Poole 

What the Government says about air leakage testing

Current legislation requires a sample of all newly built houses to be air tested to ensure compliance with the regulations. If you are air testing your new house, you can’t get an  Energy Performance Certificate until it is complete.

During testing, leakage is measured in m³ per m² of external envelope lost to uncontrolled air leakage per hour.

Your air leakage testing results should exceed the figure specified in the design SAP or SBEM. On small sites, you may ask for exemption from air testing, but if you do you’ll automatically trigger a SAP/SBEM value of 15 – and this high figure is likely to cause your overall assessment to fail. What’s more, dwellings achieving an air test of 5 or lower may need to consider knock-on implications within Part F (Ventilation)…

The way we carry out the test is to simply install a fan in a doorway, close all external openings and leave all internal openings open. Once the fan has pressurised the inside of the building the pressure difference is measured and compared to the external ambient conditions. You can read all about the process on our Air Testing Page.

Now the weather is getting a little colder we are finding that more people are thinking about putting their central heating on and are concerned about the cost of heating a house that is losing heat. We can let you know if you are wasting valuable energy and money every time you put your heating on!

 

 

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