2005, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (www.ashrae.org).

Reprinted by permission from ASHRAE Journal, (Vol. 47, No. 9, September 2005). This article may not be copied nor distributed in either paper or digital form without ASHRAEs permission.

Setting Airtightness Standards

By Henri C. Fennell and Jonathan Haehnel

minimum standard that sets the airtightness for building enve lopes does not exist but is quite necessary. This article outlines the

need for setting this minimum standard and provides a summary of the myriad of recommendations, standards, and state-of-the-art projects. It presents an overview based on a compilation and examination of the results of studies, standards, codes, tested buildings, and recommendations for whole-building airtightness in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe as tested by building pressurization test methods.1 The data was collected through a survey conducted from mid-2003 through the beginning of 2004.
Why an Airtightness Standard?

zations that support the need for good air barriers. Code requirements. Most codes and building standards have been created in response to catastrophic events. Plumbing codes, re codes, and standards for structural materials and designs developed after serious loss of life mandated that these systems be regulated. Many types of building failures are related to air leakage. The recent increase in health problems related to mold and mildew and indoor air quality make this the next most likely area for signicant code reform. Indoor air quality. Recently, a major increase in moisture-related building failures has occurred where mold and mildew growth resulting from building
About the Authors Henri C. Fennell is president and Jonathan Haehnel is general manager of Building Envelope Solutions, Inc., in North Thetford, Vt.

A number of reasons exist for why air leakage should be minimized in the design, specication, and construction of a build26 ASHRAE Journal

ing. Good air barrier materials and systems are necessary to reduce air leakage. Following are some of the reasons cited by industry members and organiashrae.org

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materials with elevated moisture content levels for extended periods of time have created signicant concerns about indoor air quality. Airborne vapor transport along leakage pathways is a major source of moisture migration into and out of building envelope cavities. In fact, envelope inltration can lead to indoor air quality problems as the outdoor air entry via this mechanism is uncontrolled as to rate and distribution, unltered and can contribute to moisture problems.2 Avoidance of building failures. Building scientists and others involved in the remediation of building failures agree that many are caused, at least in part, by air leakage. Ice dams on roofs with vented attics or cathedral slopes, frozen pipes, and condensation with its subsequent moisture-related problems can occur in structures that are adequately insulated but have poor air barriers (at least in the areas of localized building failures). Energy efciency. Controlling air leakage is a major factor in building envelope performance. If we assume all new buildings have a reasonable level of insulation (we already have prescriptive or performance-based standards for insulation R-values, glazing products, etc.), airtightness is the remaining determinant of whether a building envelope will be energy efcient or not. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has concluded that up to 40% of the energy consumed to heat or cool a building is due to air leakage into and out of buildings.6 Also, a review by the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association (NAIMA) of seven research projects conducted between 1990 and 1997 that tested the role of insulation as an air barrier system indicates that While insulation plays a signicant role in energy savings in a home, its role in reducing air inltration is negligible.3 The DOEs Building Americas performance criteria include a recommendation that Air leakage (determined by blower door depressurization testing) should be less than 0.25 cfm/ft2 (1.3 L/s per m2) of building enclosure surface area at a 50 Pa (0.2 in. w.g.) air pressure differential.4 Building air security. Internal and external air barrier systems may be critical components in our defense against biological terrorism. In recent years many individuals and organizations have advocated the use of several ventilation-based strategies to protect building occupants from accidental and intentional releases of airborne chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) agents. For example, the protection offered by outdoor air ltration and air cleaning in combination with building pressurization has been highlighted. However, many of these recommendations have not considered the
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key role played by envelope airtightness in determining the effectiveness of these strategies.5 Once you have good air barrier materials and systems, you need to provide good design and installation practices to ensure these materials will perform well once they are installed. Without minimum performance standards, exists no incentive for the designers or installers of building envelopes to provide air barrier systems or perform work above the level of current practices. Following are some of the reasons that reducing air leakage in our buildings is important and why this will require us to set a minimum airtightness standard. Improved criteria for optimizing the design. Setting a limit for air leakage will allow the engineer to optimize the design of the heating and cooling system to provide only enough energy or dehumidication to make up for a known quantity of uncontrolled air leakage. Although it may require a cultural change among design engineers, the need for costly built-in safety factors in the mechanical system design could be reduced signicantly. This is because the designer would have reliable predictions of the level of losses through the building envelope. This is important because it is the largest upfront savings that can be realized from setting an upper limit on uncontrolled air leakage that can offset the initial costs of air barrier systems and quality installations. Better construction practices. Standards provide a level playing eld for builders in competitive bid situations. Air leakage standards are a useful tool for increasing designer and builder awareness of the causes of many building failures and in promoting training necessary to provide better air barrier installations. Without a whole-building, airtightness standard, air barrier performance is likely to vary signicantly with no one clearly responsible for problems caused by air leakage. An air barrier performance standard provides the basis for requiring an air barrier system durability guarantee from the installer and for determining if the air barrier material or system has failed before the warrantee period has expired. Customer satisfaction. The owner has a right to expect a reasonable level of building performance, especially if the owner wants a high-performance building. A specied, maximum air leakage threshold and test protocol provides a method for evaluating the performance and durability of the products and assemblies used, the completeness of the design details, and the quality of the builders installation. Failure to meet a compliance standard
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for the airtightness of a building indicates that the client will have at least localized problems.
Whole-Building Airtightness
U.S. Canada Sweden England

Typical Residential (Averages)

Zilin, 19867 5.5 0.31 to 0.61* Katz, 19948 0.44 ACH 50 CFM50/ft2 ACH 50 CFM50/ft2 ACH 50 CFM50/ft2 ACH 50 CFM50/ft2 4.0 to 8.0*

Biggs et al, 19879

To provide speciers with an overview of the history of the airtightness of buildings, a survey of documented studies that examined the airtightness of buildings constructed during the last 60 years. The results of this research are summarized in Table 1. The averages of the current code and industry recommendations were then researched and are summarized in Table 2. Wholebuilding performance cannot approach the airtightness of any air barrier material because the building envelope includes mechanical system components, such as windows, doors, and skylights, none of which are as airtight as air barrier components themselves. Many of the major organizations that set standards and testing methods for the construction industry, including ASHRAE, The Air Barrier Association of America (ABAA), The Canadian C2000 Program, and all of the building codes that were surveyed, had requirements for air sealing, but had not set standards or made recommendations as to how well the air sealing should perform. Other organizations had guidelines, recommendations, or in-house standards for evaluating the performance of whole buildings. Groups and organizations such as ENERGY STAR, Conservation Services Group, The Canadian C-2000 and R2000 Programs, Energy Rated Homes of Vermont, and Building America use blower door test results for rating or as compliance criteria or for their programs. These were included in the data used to develop the current standards average listed in Table 2. Recommendations made by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) air leakage test method, manufacturers of test equipment, and United Kingdom Building Regulations and Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA) standards also were included. The state-of-the-art buildings data came from a list of recent high-performance buildings that were reported by speciers or building science industry members, as well as industry respondents who had numbers for both normal building standards and high-performance building standards.
Comparing Whole-Building Airtightness Standards

4.4 0.24 to 0.49* 3.7 0.21 to 0.41* 13.9 0.77 to 1.54* Proskiw and Phillips, 200110

Typical Commercial (Averages)

ACH 50 U.S. (Commercial) CFM50/ft2 ACH 50 Canada (Commercial) CFM50/ft2 Sweden (Industrial) England (Ofces) ACH 50 CFM50/ft2 ACH 50 CFM50/ft2

4.9 to 7.5* 0.93* 1.1 to 1.6* 0.20* 1.1 to 1.8* 0.22* 6.0 to 9.1* 1.14*

* Values were mathematically derived if the information was not originally reported

in this unit. Derivations that required a building size to complete the calculation (ACH50 to CFM50) were based on model buildings that represent the extremes in volume-to-surface-area ratios and are reported as a range of values. (Source: Standards were provided by organizations and individuals active in the industry. SOTA buildings values were collected by, and on le with, Building Envelope Solutions, Inc.)

Table 1: Historical residential and commercial airtightness data for buildings built with normal construction practices.

Comparing airtightness standards used by all of these organizations turned out to be problematic. As evidenced by

the number of units of measure listed in the sidebar Units of Measure, clearly no consensus exists of what units to use among these industry members. These units of measure are not always easy to relate to each other when the building conguration is unknown and the method of testing is not uniform from country to country. For this reason, many of the averages in the data presented in the tables are expressed in ranges rather than as one value. As a result of these comparison and translation problems, a goal that has resulted from this study is to encourage the build Equivalent Leakage Area (EqLA)National Research Council (NRC) of Canada Model. Units independent of the relationship between the surface area and the volume of the building: Air leakage rate/unit area of exterior shell at 75 Pa (L/sm2 at 75 Pa or LSM75 or CFM75/ft2 or m3/h m2 at 75 Pa). Air leakage rate/unit area of exterior shell at 50 Pa (CFM50/ft2). ELA (4 Pa) or EqLA (10 Pa)/unit area of exterior shell also referred to as the equivalent leakage ratio (ELR). May be at 10 Pa (based on NRC model) or 4 Pa (based on LBNL model).
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Units of Measure
Units that do not account for the relationship between the surface area and volume of the building: Air changes per hour at 50 Pa (ACH50); Air changes per hour at natural pressures (ACH Natural = ~ ACH50/20); Air leakage rate in cfm at 50 Pa (CFM50); Natural air leakage rate in cfm (CFM Natural); and Effective leakage area (ELA)Lawrence Berkley Laboratories Model (LBNL);
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ing community to reach a consensus on a single, industry-wide unit of measure for reporting and specifying whole-building airtightness. A unit of measure that considers the air leakage per unit of surface area would be universally applicable to all buildings without complicated translations requiring detailed knowledge of each building. It is our recommendation that CFM50/ft2 be considered for a universal unit of measure for the industry. Including only the above-grade surfaces for all calculations also would standardize the airtightness values. How does a specier or owner know what standard is reasonable for a given building? A number of considerations go into selecting the compliance standard for any building. For example, it may be more difcult to achieve an ideal air barrier in renovation projects due to access and payback considerations. Swimming pools have much more difcult moisture conditions where airtightness should reach state-of-the-art levels to avoid physical damage and air quality problems, even in a building that may be planned for a relatively short life cycle. Art and artifact storage and display facilities require controlled environments that require tighter building envelopes to avoid moisture problems. The following is a list of factors architects and engineers should consider as important design considerations when setting airtightness standard for their projects. The minimum standard required to meet any local building codes that contain airtightness standards. The owners requirement for a certain level of building performance. The current and state-of-the-art building performance levels reported in this study are all achievable. The level specied must be achievable (not too tight) in a cost-effective manner, but the allowed leakage must not be so high (leaky) as to invite building envelope-related problems. The severity of the building environment in a given climate. The owners ability to tolerate a building failure. The payback for the specic building materials or systems required to achieve a specied level of performance over the life cycle of the building. (The difference in energy use can be calculated based on the reduction in uncontrolled air change rate. The reduced load will translate into reduced HVAC system size and fuel use. This value can be offset against air

Current Standards, State of the Art Buildings (SOTA), And Air Barrier (AB) Material Standards Residential (Averages)
Current Standards ACH 50 CFM50/ft2 4.4 0.25 to 0.49* SOTA Buildings 1.0 0.06 to 0.11* AB Material Standards N/A 0.0022

Current Standards, State of the Art Buildings (SOTA), And Air Barrier (AB) Material Standards Commercial (Averages)
Current Standards ACH 50 CFM50/ft2 1.4 to 2.1* 0.26 SOTA Buildings 0.77 0.15 AB Material Standards N/A 0.022

* Values were mathematically derived if the information was not originally reported in
this unit. Derivations that required a building size in order to complete the calculation (ACH50 to CFM50) were based on model buildings that represent the extremes in volume-to-surface-area ratios and are reported as a range of values. (Source: Standards were provided by organizations and individuals active in the industry. SOTA buildings values were collected by, and on le with, Building Envelope Solutions, Inc.)

Table 2: Current residential and commercial airtightness data for buildings built with normal construction practices.

barrier system costs to determine the payback period for the improvement in the airtightness of the building envelope). Factor in savings or other benets from various incentive programs available for high-performance buildings (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design [LEED] from the U.S. Green Building Council, Energy Crafted Homes, etc.). The conguration of the building. It is probable that building designs with a smaller number of transitions (wall-toroof, corners, wall-to-foundation, overhangs, etc.) result in buildings that are easier to make tight. Very large, low buildings typically have at membrane-covered roofs that are easier to make airtight compared to shingle or standingseam sloped roofs usually found on smaller structures. The ranges identied in this study for normal and state-ofthe-art building performance provide a starting point to guide architects in setting standards for specic buildings. Selecting due to air, wind, stack, and vapor pressure into and out of buildings.6 The rate of air leakage through a building envelope is the volume of the air that passes through the building envelope in a unit of time. This ow rate or volume of airow for a given period of time is used to represent the buildings airtightness. High-performance buildings are buildings that use signicantly less energy and/or resources to construct and operate. An airtightness standard is an upper limit for the allowed rate of unintended airow or leakage through the building envelope measured at a xed, uniform pressure. The designer typically establishes this maximum ow rate in the project specications.
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Terms
The airtightness of a building envelope is a representation of how leaky (the quantity of air leakage) a building is relative to its size. Air leakage is dened as the unintended ow of air into and out of a building due to pressure differences across the building envelope caused by stack effect, wind, and internal mechanical system pressures. This is unintended air movement through the building envelope construction rather than through ventilation systems. This is a totally separate issue from providing fresh air for building occupants. An air barrier is the building envelope component that resists air leakage or, the intrusion and diffusion of air
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the tightest end of the range, or a number at or near the state of the art for similar buildings, would be appropriate for setting high but achievable standards for highperformance buildings and for difcult environments such as swimming pools. Eventually, a dew-point calculation for the local climate and planned indoor temperature and humidity levels can be used to determine how likely air leakage will create a moisture problem. Normal uses in cold and moderate climates without air conditioning could target the low end of the range. Projects with air conditioning could include an analysis of the vapor drive in both directions and most likely should be nearer to the top of the range.
Conclusion

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Clearly, it is necessary to improve the airtightness of our buildings to reduce the frequency of callbacks, building failures, and lawsuits. Giving more emphasis to air barrier system design and including air leakage standards in our project specications are the most effective and probably the fastest ways to address this need. Air barrier specication language is well developed at many architectural rms and is readily available from ABAA and other trade sources, air barrier materials and systems are well proven, and trade organizations and manufacturers training programs are available to provide certication for installers of these systems. What remains is to compel the builders to implement the design intent. It is hoped that this research provides a starting point for designers and speciers to use in selecting adequate but attainable performance standards for their projects. The industry can support designers by adding minimum air barrier standards to all building codes, otherwise these systems are usually value-engineered out because they are not required. Good air barriers add to the cost of buildings. However, they also reduce operating costs, fossil-fuel emissions, and building failures. Minimum standards in the building codes would provide a benchmark for designers to protect their clients and themselves against building envelope problems. In addition, the industry should agree on one unit of measure and test method that

will break the engineer speak barrier that all but building scientists now face. If everyone were using the same technical terminology that was consistent for all building congurations, an understanding of what airtightness standards were appropriate for a given building type or desired level of performance would come more quickly. Designers would then be able to specify an air barrier system and set an air leakage standard that: Is achievable; Is adequate for the use of the building; Will reduce the frequency and magnitude of building envelope failures; Includes air-barrier-related guarantees; Includes quality assurance and compliance testing; and Will result in a payback over a reasonable portion of the life cycle of the building.
References
1. ASTM E799-99, Standard Test Method for Determining Air Leakage Rate by Fan Pressurization; CGSB 149.10, Standard for Determining the Airtightness of Building Envelopes. 2. Persily, A. 2004. Q&A on building security. ASHRAE Journal 46(9):20 23. 3. NAIMA. 2004. The Facts About Insulation and Air Inltration. www.naima.org/pages/ resources/library/html/BI480.HTML. 4. Building America: U.S. Department of Energy, Ofce of Energy Efciency and Renewable Energy/Building Science Corporation. 5. Persily, A. 2004. Building ventilation and pressurization as a security tool. ASHRAE Journal 46(9):18 26. 6. Air Barrier Association of America. About Air Barriers. www.airbarrier.org/aboutair barriers.htm. 7. Zilin, R. 1986. Blower door fundamentals. Solar Age Magazine January. 8. Katz, A. 1997. Whats being built out there? Performance tests on 100 new homes. Home Energy Magazine Online September/October. http://hem.dis.anl.gov/eehem/97/970913.html. 9. Biggs, K.L., Bennie, I.D. and Michell, D. 1987. Air Inltration Rates of Some Australian Houses. Australian Institutional Buildings 2:49 61. 10. Proskiw, P., Bert, G. 2001. Air Leakage Characteristics, Test Methods and Specications for Large Buildings. Prepared for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. www. cmhc-schl.gc.ca/publications/en/rh-pr/tech/01123-e.htm.

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