Modern Construction And Airtightness Testing
Airtightness is more than a technical requisite. It is a testament to our collective responsibility. It is about crafting buildings that do not just stand as a monument to our creativity, but as symbols of our commitment to a sustainable future.
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in demand for better regulations in the built environment including sustainable construction. These demands result from the global pandemic, increased environmental awareness, and modern tragedies such as the Grenfell Fire in the UK. In response, there have been several developments in certification standards and their requirements, such as Passive House. Built environment testing and airtightness play a crucial role in this.
Airtightness integrity refers to the efficacy of a building at preventing unwanted air flow through unsealed and porous areas such as gaps and cracks within the buildings’ structure. These air leakages can lead to energy loss which has a negative environmental impact and can lead to increased energy costs for the occupants.
Consequently, integrity testing has become a critical step in modern construction. Built environment testing provides builders, architects, and property developers with the assurance that new buildings meet stringent environmental performance requirements and align with global sustainability goals.
Compliance Vs Performance: What’s The Difference?
Compliance does not equal optimal building performance.
Compliance means that a building meets the minimum regulatory requirements for the area. These standards ensure that buildings are safe, structurally sound, and meet environmental targets. For example, the building regulations in England, Northern Ireland, and Wales indicate a maximum air permeability of <10m3 / (h.m2) at a reference pressure of 50 Pascals. While essential, compliance alone may not guarantee that a building operates at its highest efficiency or comfort levels.
Performance, on the other hand, aims to optimise the buildings construction, often going beyond standard regulations. Using the same example, the AECB Silver and Gold Standards for energy performance require <3.0 m3 / (h.m2) and 0.75 m3 / (h.m2) air permeability respectively. Therefore, meeting standard regulations does not always mean that the building will achieve optimal performance.
Airtightness integrity testing plays a key role in both ensuring compliance and achieving optimal building performance. By identifying and minimising air leakage, airtightness testing helps builders satisfy regulatory standards while contributing to greater energy efficiency, reduced operating costs, and improved thermal comfort and control. Thereby, contributing to compliance with air permeability regulations and contributing to the overall performance of the structure.
Our Expertise In Airtightness Testing And Leak Quantification
The regulations and requirements for airtightness are varied from one application to another, often with significant differences. As such, there is not one steadfast rule that applies to all circumstances making it important for testing solutions to be as adaptable as possible.
Outlined below are some key certifications and standards that require airtightness testing:
- National Building Standards – Most countries have national building standards that will include requirements for airtightness. Additionally, in the EU you must meet the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). This includes airtightness requirements designed to reduce the environment impact of energy inefficiency in buildings.
- Green Building, Sustainability, and Energy Efficiency Certifications – Notable examples include Passive House, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), and Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM).
- Industrial and Commercial Standards – Certain industrial and commercial buildings will have distinct requirements for their specific use or industry. For example, clean rooms will have a different airtightness standard than an office building.
- Insurance Risk and Compliance – FM Global Standards have airtightness testing as a method for ensuring a building’s resilience to the environment.
Consequently, airtightness integrity testing is crucial across the built environment and integral to numerous certifications and standards. Ensuring these standards are met is vital to achieving high-performance in your buildings.
Our Portascanner® Airtight can detect leaks as small as 0.06mm in diameter and quantify leaks as small as 0.5mm in diameter. It automatically analyses and consolidates this data, presenting the results as indicators of a room’s airtightness. The Portascanner® Airtight can be set to either metric or imperial units and customised to the specific regulations and thresholds required by the operator. This allows for quick testing with extreme precision for a variety of applications across the built environment.
Why Airtightness Testing Is Important For Built Environment Longevity
Airtightness is of paramount importance for ensuring the longevity buildings. It serves several crucial purposes, contributing to the preservation and sustainability of the built environment, especially in heritage buildings. It also has several more noticeable benefits for its occupants as airtight construction helps ensure energy efficiency, acoustic insulation, thermal comfort, and occupant health.
Ensuring airtightness contributes to the long-term durability of the building envelope. This is because it helps protect the structure from damaging environmental influences such as moisture and water ingress. In addition to contributing to stable humidity, stable temperature levels, and preventing air pressure differentials. All of which helps to preserve a buildings building’s structural integrity regardless of its application.
Indoor air quality has been of increasing concern in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Uncontrolled air leakage increases the risk of airborne diseases affecting occupants and spreading through the building. An estimated seventy per cent of the world’s population spends approximately ninety per cent of its time indoors. As a result, ensuring proper indoor air quality has never been more important. While solutions such as HEPA filters and ultraviolet filtration systems have had a positive effect, they are only as effective as the building’s overall ventilation. Air tightness integrity is required to achieve optimum air quality.
When heating or cooling a building, airtightness and ventilation are crucial to combat poor energy efficiency. A building needs to be sufficiently airtight to ensure all the energy is used efficiently and to prevent it escaping. Even with insulation, temperature control will be considerably less efficient without suitable airtight integrity which will lead to increased heating bills and occupant discomfort. This has two significant implications: an increased carbon footprint and increased operating costs for your building. These consequences are why it’s so important to undergo airtight integrity testing.
Future Trends In Airtightness And Leak Detection
Traditional airtight integrity testing methods include visual inspection, smoke testing, pressure testing, and dye testing. These are often unreliable, time-consuming, complex, and do not provide quantitative data.
As environmental and health concerns are gaining increasing importance in the social imaginary and within legislation built environment testing must improve to meet this demand. Airtightness is not constant and changes overtime due to wear and tare, thermal stress, and other factors. Therefore, it is important to have a testing method that is reliable and can be used routinely to ensure optimal performance.
Ultrasonic instrumentation is a necessary innovation in integrity testing within the built environment. The Portascanner® AIRTIGHT is a world-first instrument that is able to:
- Non-disruptively identify leak sites with a microscopic level of accuracy
- Measure and quantify a cross-sectional area
- Determine the air flow rate through each leak under any range of conditions using sophisticated algorithms
- Calculate a room’s overall air permeability and Air Changes Per Hour (ACH)
- Store photographic and quantitative data to generate traceable, exportable reports
Move Towards Building Compliance With Coltraco’s Testing Solutions
With rising concerns about Global Warming and the increasing importance of Net Zero goals there has been a distinct shift in building regulations. Subsequently, there has also been an increased awareness of the importance of airtightness testing. Our living and workplaces, be they at our homes or elsewhere, need to be safe and productive while ensuring the health of our people and our planet.
The Portascanner® Airtight is novel and highly beneficial. All other existing methods of quantifying airtightness require the use of an invasive process that disrupts the operation of any facility being tested. They also cannot provide location or quantification of specific leaks.
In contrast this instrumentation is safe and non-invasive; by using ultrasound signal only it requires no pressurisation and causes minimum disruption. This allows for regular airtightness testing and ‘on the fly’ remedial action to considerably increase the chance of a successful certification and regulation checks. In addition to facilitating routine testing to ensure continual compliance and optimal performance.
If you would like to learn more about the Portascanner® Airtight, a member of our team would be delighted to assist you.
