Achieve Blower Door Requirements with AeroBarrier Technology

The 2012 IECC introduced the requirement to test residential units to ensure the building envelope meets the maximum allowed air infiltration rates verified with a blower door test. With a clear understanding of the potential areas where air can enter and leave the building envelope and proper attention to sealing these areas, passing the blower door test is achievable. However, ensuring that all subcontractors who impact the building envelope by installing different materials (concrete to framing), drilling holes, and other activities that compromise the building envelope can be a significant challenge.

There are many leakage paths, and they all must be addressed. Every connection between different materials, gaps, cracks, and holes through both the exterior sheathing and drywall must be sealed. To complicate this, because air is a mixture of gasses, it will find every path during a blower door test to move from outside to inside. Even if it is entering the attic through the vents, moving through the ceiling insulation, past an unsealed gap between the framing top plate and drywall, entering the wall cavity, traveling down the wall cavity, and entering the house through the switch and plug boxes. This is more challenging for small units with many of the same openings, but a much smaller allowed infiltration rate.

EnergyLogic performs thousands of blower door tests every year. Houses under 2,000 square feet, attached units with shared walls, and apartments consistently struggle to pass blower door testing. Running around with a caulk gun trying to locate leaks three days before closing, scheduling another blower door test, and paying another re-inspection fee is frustrating, stressful, and inefficient. What if there was a way to almost guarantee to pass the blower door test the first time? 

AeroBarrier is a technology and process that removes the hope that a unit will pass a blower door test. By pressurizing the building envelope with a blower door to distribute their water-based sealing formula, every gap smaller than ½” is sealed with a safe, Green Guard Gold certified with Ultra-low VOC content material. The process is run for as long as needed to meet the project's requirements. The longer it runs, the tighter the building envelope becomes.