Field trialling of a pulse airtightness tester in a range of UK homes

Edward Cooper,Xiaofeng Zheng,Christopher Wood,Mark Gillot,David Tetlow,Saffa Riffat,Lia De Simon

doi:10.1080/14733315.2016.1252155

Edward Cooper, Xiaofeng Zheng + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/14733315.2016.1252155

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Abstract

ABSTRACTA low pressure ‘quasi-steady’ pulse technique for determining the airtightness of buildings has been developed and compared with the standard blower-door technique for field-testing a range of UK homes. The reported low pressure air pulse unit for determining the airtightness of buildings, through several development stages related to optimising the algorithm, pressure reference and system construction, has been trialled under various testing and environmental conditions to assess its repeatability and accuracy. The houses, representative of the UK housing stock, mostly have high levels of air leakage; resulting in poor energy performance and imbalanced indoor environments. The results of the pulse technique are also compared with the standard blower-door technique. The comparison indicates that the pulse technique is reliable for determining building leakage at low pressure. Repeatability of consecutive tests in identical conditions is found to be within ±5% of the mean, and within ±8% when tested under different environment conditions. It has also been shown that the correct tank/valve combination is necessary to achieve the required quasi-steady flow. Tests for accuracy using the addition of known openings have been conducted and shown that uncertainties are hard to eliminate for a clean comparison when testing conditions are not controlled.

Highlights

The impact of infiltration as a consequence of poor airtightness can be considerable; research by Jones (Jones, 2015) predicts that unintended infiltration across the UK housing stock may be responsible for as much as 5% of total UK energy demand
The tests that are reported include consecutive tests in identical conditions, tests with tanks of different sizes, tests done under different environmental conditions, comparison tests with the standard blower door unit and tests for accuracy
The low pressure air pulse unit (APU) has been field trialled for measuring the airtightness of a range of typical UK home types under various testing and environment conditions

Summary

Introduction

The impact of infiltration as a consequence of poor airtightness can be considerable; research by Jones (Jones, 2015) predicts that unintended infiltration across the UK housing stock may be responsible for as much as 5% of total UK energy demand. The pulse technique measures the building leakage at various pressure levels similar to leakage measurements using as a blower door test process. It measures in a dynamic manner instead of taking each individual reading at a steady pressure level. The advantage of this technique is that the test can be done in 11-15 seconds. The challenge lies in the occurrence of the inertia effect of air that flows through openings, which adds uncertainty to the measurement (Sharples et al 2005).

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