Acoustic method for measurement of airtightness – field testing on three different existing office buildings in Germany

Maintaining the airtightness of building envelopes is a key factor for the energy efficiency of buildings. A fast and reliable detection of leaks plays a decisive role, especially during building renovations. For this reason, work has been done in recent years to apply an acoustic beamforming method that enables the fast, simple, and large-area detection of leaks in building envelopes. This method is based on a microphone array technology and assumes that sound primarily follows the same paths as air through the building envelope.