A blower door test determines how leaky a home is.
Have you ever stood in the wind wearing a nice thick fleece jacket and felt the cold air right through that thick fleece? The fleece does nothing because the air blows right through it. Essentially it leaks real bad. Then if you put on a light weight wind breaker over the fleece all of a sudden you don’t feel the air blowing through the jacket anymore. This windbreaker seals the leaks and you warm up.
Until recently most homes were built with a fleece jacket, but no wind breaker. Homes have gotten better over the years but it’s only in the last several years that new homes have been built much ‘tighter’, or less leaky.We want our homes to be as tight as possible to prevent the air that we’ve paid to heat or cool from escaping.
The way we determine how leaky a home is, is with a blower door test. It’s essentially a fan with a frame we place in an exterior door to measure how leaky the home is. Abacus Inspection Service is able to perform blower door tests for you to determine how leaky your home is or how much improvement has been made after an air-sealing project.