Blower Door Tests

Let John Anderson Service Company reduce your energy consumption, help you save money, avoid moisture condensation problems, eliminate drafts and avoid indoor contamination.  In most homes, air leakage is the biggest robber of heating and cooling dollars. 

A blower door test will help you increase the efficiency of heating and cooling by eliminating air leaks in the top of your home or business (warm air rises and leaks out unsealed areas at the top of your building) and the bottom (leaks at the bottom of your structure pull in cool air).  In addition, you can improve your indoor air quality by reducing condensation (leading to mold/mildew) and outside air (containing pollutants such as carbon dioxide from exhaust, etc.).  Details of how blower door testing is performed is available at www.southface.org/blowerdoor/

Recently, the Wall Street Journal placed a video of an actual Blower Door Test online.  CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE WSJ BLOWER DOOR TEST VIDEO.

In the past, finding air leaks in a house was a difficult task.   Now we have equipment to determine air changes per hour (the complete replacement of the indoor air volume of the house in an hour) at a standard pressure differential (pressure inside the house minus pressure outside the house), telling us how the house if performing and where problems are.  For more information on our blower door testing equipment, visit www.energyconservatory.com.

Five air changes per hour is a reasonable performance.  Most homes in our area have 10 to 15 times that amount and new homes have 5 to 10 times that amount.  Our goal is to provide no more than 1 to 1.5 times the recommended reasonable amount. 

The most common fix is to seal the identified leaks with materials that include foam, acrylic adhesive tape, acoustical sealant, polyurethane caulk, polyethylene sheet and rigid foam.  All these materials are available at most home improvement stores.  Statistics and information on weatherization by the US Department of Energy are available at http://usdoe.gov/weatherization/

After leaks are sealed, the blower door test can be repeated to measure improvements.  It may point out an area or two that needs additional sealing or confirm that the job has been well done.

And the best news of all:  you may qualify for tax credits under the new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or from Georgia Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency.  Details for Federal incentives are available at www.energystar.gov/federal incentives/.  Information for Georgia Incentives is available at www.gefa.org/state incentives/.  Don’t have the cash but want to start saving right away?  Financing is available through GE Money.

Call us to day at 706-629-0740 to schedule your Blower Door Test right away.  Why wait and continue to spend money heating and cooling the great outdoors? 

Working under State HVAC License Number CN003636, we comply with Federal, State and Local Regulation, carry insurance up to 1 million dollars and we provide service 24/7, 365 days per year.