Blower Door Test: Explaining The Whole Process
Detecting The Heat Loss In Your Home
Winter is always the easiest time to tell when your home may be lacking insulation. Reaching out to a reliable contractor is the first step you take in solving your issue of heat loss. When we come out to your Central Iowa home, it is sometimes easy to see or hear where the air is coming into the house. But to get the full extent of pinpointing the leaks, we use special tools. One of those special tools we use is called a Blower Door Test.
The Pictured is a micro manometer. This is connected to the blower door and measures the amount of air loss and leakage escaping from your home.
How Does A Blower Door Test Work?
You may be thinking why do I need to get a Blower Door Test done if you can already detect where the leaks are coming from. Well, the Blower Door Test can give us the full picture of the struggling parts in your home that we can’t see by just walking through. This specialized equipment is placed in the main entry door and sucks all of the inside air out.
With all of the air out of the home, the blower door test forces outside air into the house through the leaks in your home. While it is running, our specialized trained salesman diagnoses the air leaks in each room of your home using a smoke tool. It allows us to see where the leaks are at giving us the exact area where insulation is needed. From there, we can easily provide you with one of our insulation services to give your home the perfect insulation solution.
A blower door is a calibrated fan set up in an exterior doorway with a computer attached to it. It sucks the air out of the house until the house is depressurized to 50 pascals of pressure. A pascal is a unit of air pressure. 50 pascals is a standard unit of air pressure we test and compare the total air leakage in every home to.
Understanding The Science Behind It
It is crazy as to how much science is behind insulating your home. Each home has a standard called Minimum Ventilation Guideline that tells us how much fresh air is needed in your home for proper health. Any amount higher than the normal is known as wasting energy and causing discomfort in the home.
We calculate this by measuring the size of heated space in your home and considering how many people live or could live in it. When running the blower door test, we compare the standard unit of air pressure to the MVG to find the correct energy for the home to be efficient and healthy for you.
Smoke tools help to pinpoint air leak locations in your home.
Live Comfortably In Your Home Today
While you may still think the Blower Door Test is confusing; it is a crucial test in living comfortably in your home. Here at Home Solutions of Iowa, we offer various insulation services that can meet the needs of your home. Based on what we find from the Blower Door Test, we provide the complete insulation package. From Air Sealing to the various types of insulations we can install; we promise to have a solution to the cold drafts in your home. Reach out to us today for a Home Performance Evaluation and maximize your home comfort today!
