A study of air leakage in residential buildings

According to the 31/2010 European directive on energy performance of buildings, from the year 2020 every new building should be a near zero energy building (nZEB). Some European countries have already adapted their regulations to achieve this objective and one of the most important factors is to limit the air leakage rate in buildings. The normalized test EN 13829 (thermal performance of buildings. Determination of air permeability in buildings. Fan pressurization method) known worldwide as the “Blower door test”, is used to quantify the level of air tightness. The objective of this work is to know the level of infiltrated air in residential buildings constructed in Spain and determine the most important reasons for the increase of this rate, in order to reduce it. More than 120 apartments of 25 different buildings have been tested with the blower door system.