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2015 IECC/IRC Mandatory Blower Door Testing

tmurray said:
I was an energy advisor certified by the provincial and federal government. I performed blower door tests as part of the energy audit. We usually ran 2.5 hours including a full inspection of the insulation levels of the home, measuring geometry and recording mechanical systems. Blower door tests take about 15 minutes and maybe 5 to run the numbers for ACH. I've done hundreds of them, so maybe I'm a little faster than most, but I doubt that it would take much longer than than that for most people.
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TMurray:

ASHRAE is a global organization, do you Canuks comply with ASHRAE and it's §62.2? If you do blower door tests to be sure the building is sealed up how do you comply with 62.2 without a second blower door test?

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories said:
Is ASHRAE Standard 62.2 current best practice for ventilation? In a word, no. ASHRAE 62.2 is a standard that national experts could agree upon that sets a minimum standard for ventilation — not best practice, which would further customize ventilation rates based on factors such as number of occupants in a dwelling and strength of pollutant sources.

Meeting the ventilation requirements for ASHRAE Standard 62.2 will not always provide enough ventilation for a home. In these circumstances, ventilation rates need to be increased beyond the Standard.

The Standard does not address high-polluting events such as painting, cleaning, smoking or construction projects.
The Standard does not address the use of unvented combustion space heaters such as unvented decorative gas appliances and kerosene heaters, which are not allowed in California.
The Standard assumes one person per bedroom, with two people in the master bedroom. Higher numbers of occupants will increase ventilation needs.
Occupants with health issues such as asthma and allergies may benefit from increased ventilation and/or filtration.¹
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¹ https://resaveguide.lbl.gov/ashrae-standard-62-2
 
conarb said:
TMurray:

ASHRAE is a global organization, do you Canuks comply with ASHRAE and it's §62.2? If you do blower door tests to be sure the building is sealed up how do you comply with 62.2 without a second blower door test?


No, we use CAN/CSA F326-M or there is a prescriptive path under the code they can use. They can use ASHRAE 62 (not 62.2) if they want, but I've never seen it. We don't even blower door test under energy efficiency requirements. We have prescriptive air sealing requirements.

Important to keep in mind that air testing negatively penalizes complicated buildings. These types of buildings are more likely to have complicated air sealing problems.
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conarb said:
TMurray, so answer the question, or we'll send The Donald up there to straighten out Treudeau Jr.
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Oops, I answered in the quote tags, so it didn't show up correctly;

No, we use CAN/CSA F326-M or there is a prescriptive path under the code they can use. They can use ASHRAE 62 (not 62.2) if they want, but I've never seen it. We don't even blower door test under energy efficiency requirements. We have prescriptive air sealing requirements.

Important to keep in mind that air testing negatively penalizes complicated buildings. These types of buildings are more likely to have complicated air sealing problems.
 
Thanks T Murray, if The Donald does come up there how about you going to him and saying: "Donald, after participating in The Building Codes Forums I've come to see how screwed up your building codes are, if you really want 'to make America great again' here is a copy of our codes, I grant you full permission to adopt them without copyright restriction"? Then present him a book of all your codes. If they work in a country still in The Ice Age they will certainly work here.
 
Still in the process of adopting blower door testing or not. I had a discussion with a builder that owns one and he suggested I require it. But, if the test fails, instead of requiring the builder to go around and fix every leak, make it more of a learning experience for them so that they can gradually do a better job on the next building. If they want to fix the leaks that were identified it is up to them. My thought is if the insulation and air sealing inspection is thorough enough, the blower door test is a waste of time and money.
 
Cant adopt the mechanical ventilation requirements in the 2015 IRC/IECC without the blower door requirement. That is my conundrum.
Not unless i just assume that every house has less than 5ACH
 
Had our first blower door test the other day. Contractor didn't do anything to the place that he hadn't already been doing. 1.9 ACH. The house was so tight that if you farted the toilet would flush. :)
 
I spent 4.5 years at a place called Shemya Alaska - the winds there are hurricane force - 100 MPH was moderate.
When the winds blew the water in toilet bowls swirled. Every time I had R&R I would come back to dry traps that had been siphoned empty.
Trap Primers could not keep up so we had buildings that had sewer gas problems.
Go live somewhere where wind is that constant and you will discover all kinds of building problems. for example air hoods need long downward facing entrances to keep from drawing in the moisture. A wide open window during the wind might (given wind direction variations) not have water inside the building but a small crack will cause a flood (pressure). Caulking is only good for a year or two. Every roof no matter the material will not make it to its warranty period without leaks.
Oh - and flying in and out of there was an adventure every time.
I did not mean to sidetrack the thread.
 
Coder said:
Had our first blower door test the other day. Contractor didn't do anything to the place that he hadn't already been doing. 1.9 ACH. The house was so tight that if you farted the toilet would flush. :)
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We recently had one do 0.5 here.
 
Just to show you the problems we builders encounter with this sealed-up house problem. I build a home recently with expensive German windows that Tilt/Turn, I also put disappearing screens on them, I instructed the owner, a mechanical engineer by education to keep windows open, by code his house was sealed-up. A year or so he called complaining that mosquitoes were biting his girls, they were getting through the screens so he wasn't going to open his windows, I told him that he had to get air in his house to call the county Vector Control, they would poison the mosquitoes in the creek on his property, not wanting chemicals on his property he refused, I then checked and Vector Control will put mosquito eating fish in his stream if he requested, he didn't want to do that so he's been living in a sealed-up house.

Recently he took a shower at 9:00 and got up at 12:20 and took picture water still beaded on his floor after running his 120 CFM "fart fan" for three hours.
shower_beading.jpg


He then allowed the fan to run all night and took another picture at 8:00 in the morning:

shower_beading_2.jpg


I told him the only thing I could think to do was remove the little "fart fan" and install a 1,250 CFM remote kitchen fan on the roof, he doesn't want the noise and air movement of that even though the remote fan on the roof wouldn't be that bad.

At this point I have a tile setter coming over to clean the limestone with a surface-tension-breaking compound so the water won't bead up. He has also bought two small dehumidifiers that are sitting on vanity counters but I don't think they are big enough to remove the humidity from sealed-up baths.

BTW, in almost all of my houses, including my own, I put electrically openable skylights over the showers or bath tubs and leave them open 24/7 to allow the humidity to escape and ventilate the houses, they have rain sensors that automatically close them if it rains, if that fails or any rain gets by I keep them over tubs or showers so no damage is done, after the rain is over I turn the switch to open them again to keep ventilation in the house 24/7. I've done several expert reports on sick people in sealed-up "green" houses, sealing up houses in moderate climates is insane given all the chemicals we use in construction today.

Just think of us poor builders, I keep my cell phone by my bed so I am in contact 24 hours a day, I'm awakened by an email at 12:20 and get to look at the first picture, then the second comes in at 8:00 in the morning as I'm trying to eat breakfast, all because of crazy code requirements, while you code enforcers are sleeping away comfortably.
 
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Is the only mechanical ventilation localized exhaust? If so, I'm surprised that you don't see more problems. I see an HRV in every new home build.

Being that this individual is a mechanical engineer, I'm quite surprised they doesn't understand psychometrics.

Also, if this is this person's biggest problem...what a blessed life they lead. I was recently the staff representative to one of our town's planning advisory committee meeting. This was a particularly difficult meeting regarding a fence to be located closer to the property line than otherwise permitted. It was opposed to by some "not in my back yard" people. After the public left, the members of the committee stayed to express their frustration with the meeting. One of the members looked at me and said: "small minds have small problems".
 
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T Murray said:
Is the only mechanical ventilation localized exhaust? If so, I'm surprised that you don't see more problems. I see an HRV in every new home build.
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T Murray:

About 17 years ago I went to a Building Standards meeting in Sacramento on an arbitration issue, while I was waiting my turn the subject of sealing-up homes came up and Panasonic was there with several people arguing that people didn't open windows anymore so ventilation systems should be required. I had to think at the time: "Panasonic is spending all this effort and money to push fans, what do fans cost $75?" Little did I know that they were laying the groundwork for requiring several thousand dollar HRV or ERV systems in every home built. If you see HRV systems up in the frozen wastelands what do these systems cost?

BTW, on the way home I looked both in Sacramento as I left town and back in my town when I turned off the freeway and had to agree with them, I didn't see one window open in one residential home.

As to my owner's problem humidity is a problem, I see that the silvering is already starting to come off the bottoms of the very expensive Robern medicine cabinets, each at $1,900 with three mirrors two behind flanking light assemblies, and I've got 6 of those medicine cabinets in this house.
 
conarb said:
T Murray:

About 17 years ago I went to a Building Standards meeting in Sacramento on an arbitration issue, while I was waiting my turn the subject of sealing-up homes came up and Panasonic was there with several people arguing that people didn't open windows anymore so ventilation systems should be required. I had to think at the time: "Panasonic is spending all this effort and money to push fans, what do fans cost $75?" Little did I know that they were laying the groundwork for requiring several thousand dollar HRV or ERV systems in every home built. If you see HRV systems up in the frozen wastelands what do these systems cost?

BTW, on the way home I looked both in Sacramento as I left town and back in my town when I turned off the freeway and had to agree with them, I didn't see one window open in one residential home.

As to my owner's problem humidity is a problem, I see that the silvering is already starting to come off the bottoms of the very expensive Robern medicine cabinets, each at $1,900 with three mirrors two behind flanking light assemblies, and I've got 6 of those medicine cabinets in this house.
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The homes you typically build would be in the 3 to 4 thousand range based on the increased labour and ductwork. I just installed one in my home a couple years ago for a thousand dollars. 2600 sq ft 2 storey. I did all the work myself, so that's only material costs.

The big thing installers need to understand is that even though houses are getting bigger, families aren't. The same ventilation for 4 people is needed regardless of the size of the building. The only thing that changes is the ductwork and labour to install it.

The downside with HRVs and ERVs is the same as any mechanical system: they work great until you turn them off. People don't understand them and think they are a waste of money and then turn them off. I've been to a couple houses with indoor air quality issues and the first thing I noticed in them is that the owner turned off the ventilation system to save money.
 
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tmurray said:
The downside with HRVs and ERVs is the same as any mechanical system: they work great until you turn them off. People don't understand them and think they are a waste of money and then turn them off. I've been to a couple houses with indoor air quality issues and the first thing I noticed in them is that the owner turned off the ventilation system to save money.
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Yeah, a mechanical contractor I know told me that a tract builder installed them and he had disabled most of them in the entire tract, people paid him a couple of hundred a house to disable them because they were so expensive to run, so what's the purpose of sealing-up homes if it costs more to operate them than normal homes? I remember Panasonic arguing that with volume that the price would come down, so early adopters would pay more but later they would become more economical, kind of like the arguments for solar panels today
 
conarb said:
If you see HRV systems up in the frozen wastelands what do these systems cost?
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1200 sq ft home about $800.00 for a cheap one $2,000.00 for a good one plus installation is what the HVAC contractors tell us. Then again we are building homes for $85.00 per sq ft and up
 
It just shows that like fire sprinklers a manufacturers' coalition can get their products required in the codes whether they work or not. What's wrong with opening windows? This customer with his mosquito problem is the first I've had to refuse to open windows, he didn't want to pay or listen to a 1,250 CFM roof mounted fan to extract the moisture, he sure wouldn't want to pay for a several thousand dollar ERV, I guess you guys use HRVs in cold climates and ERVs in hot climates? Where do you draw the line? I was talking to another contractor and he said before his customers move in he tells them: "For Christ's sake, keep you windows open, this is a sealed-up house."

I think my mechanical engineer customer proved that little "fart fans" are worthless, getting up in the middle of the night to take pictures and then taking pictures again in the morning.
 
conarb said:
Yeah, a mechanical contractor I know told me that a tract builder installed them and he had disabled most of them in the entire tract, people paid him a couple of hundred a house to disable them because they were so expensive to run, so what's the purpose of sealing-up homes if it costs more to operate them than normal homes? I remember Panasonic arguing that with volume that the price would come down, so early adopters would pay more but later they would become more economical, kind of like the arguments for solar panels today
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Costs about $42 a year if they are on constantly. Most would be less than $20 a year. It's more about how wasteful the old air exchangers were and people not understanding the difference.
 
conarb said:
It just shows that like fire sprinklers a manufacturers' coalition can get their products required in the codes whether they work or not. What's wrong with opening windows? This customer with his mosquito problem is the first I've had to refuse to open windows, he didn't want to pay or listen to a 1,250 CFM roof mounted fan to extract the moisture, he sure wouldn't want to pay for a several thousand dollar ERV, I guess you guys use HRVs in cold climates and ERVs in hot climates? Where do you draw the line? I was talking to another contractor and he said before his customers move in he tells them: "For Christ's sake, keep you windows open, this is a sealed-up house."

I think my mechanical engineer customer proved that little "fart fans" are worthless, getting up in the middle of the night to take pictures and then taking pictures again in the morning.
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There's nothing wrong with opening windows. I completely agree with you there. The issue is that people don't do it.
 
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