Energy Efficiency Experts

 
Blower Door testing

What is a Blower Door?

A blower door is a high powered controlled fan that is hooked up to a speed controller and attached to a sealing cape to measure leakage in a house.

This data is then analyzed by a manometer to give results in real time.

The house must be put in winter condition or all windows and doors closed. The fan then pressurizes the house and the manometer controls the pressure and logs the data.

All homes have leakage. We do not live in a vacuum nor would we want to. The purpose is to limit the leakage from unconditioned space such as your attic or if you have one in Southern California your basement.

The purpose of the blower door is to determine how much leakage it has and where is it coming from. It will then give us information to determine what actions can be employed and what their expected result will be.

Controlling our conditioned air and where our ventilation air comes from makes for a healthy energy efficient home.

The blower door can also determine if your home is sealed too well or too tight (see does my house suck?). This can lead to host of unwanted problems. We want ventilation and air changes in our home to control moisture and indoor air pollutants. We use the minimum ventilation guide to determine this number. There are a number of ways to address these issues. The most common is providing a fresh air ventilation system which provides clean air from the outside and filtering it while exhausting stale air from the inside the house to the out doors

The blower door is used for the dominant duct leakage test and the delta q test as well