This paper investigates the practical feasibility of an exterior air barrier for the construction of a recently constructed light weight passive house in Ghent, Belgium. The paper discusses the results of pressurisation tests, conducted in the different construction stages of the building envelope. The windbreaker, which will also act as an...

The airtight version of a building envelope has been accepted as a structural engineering challenge in by construction workers in Germany. At the same time, the interest in energy efficient buildings by investing clients has increased considerably. Whether the energy efficiency intended by the client has been reached or not will not...

From the year 2007 the buildings must have energy efficiency calculations, which requirements are now part of Building Code Book. This is based on European Performance of Buildings Directive. This presentation will discuss about the results collected by VTT from multi-storey apartment houses and one-family houses mainly during...

Air tightness of the building envelope contains important initial data for hygrothermal design and energy calculation. This study presents and analyses field measurements of air tightness of randomly selected Estonian apartment buildings (in total 136 apartments). Buildings were selected with different external walls: lightweight frame, concrete...

Although there have been built about 20 sports halls with passive house standards by now, where the principles of residential houses and first experiences of built sports hall projects were used, but concerning the principles, there are still considerable gaps in the knowledge. In this article, questions concerning ventilation, heating and...

The developed method uses Radon as natural tracer gas, which appears everywhere in the nature hence in all buildings as well. Contrary to blowerdoor-measurement, pressure and suction areas are coevally available, depending on the pressure difference due to wind and temperature. Generally, suction areas overweight due to wind. Depending on...

With the background of different climates within Norway it was interesting to show the resulting differences in energy demand for the same typical office building. Further it was important to analyse the effectiveness of a climate adapted design that tightens the building envelope and increases the efficiency of the heat recovery system. The total...

An object reconstructed for residential purposes approved to be not sufficiently air tight. With methods that are generally known as inappropriate, it was tried to improve the air tightness subsequently to a reasonable level. Therefore, joints were formed elastically, cavities were filled with insulating material and slots were foamed with construction...

Two studies have recently been performed to evaluate the current form of the Delta-Q test for duct leakage. In the first study 19 new homes in Wisconsin, USA were tested, and in the other 14 existing homes in Central Illinois, USA were measured. A primary goal was to determine whether the Delta-Q test was sufficiently reliable to use in production...

Already in the year 1983, the general basis paper for noting air tightness, which was elaborated by the Swedish construction council for the AIVC, pointed to the particular risk of moisture stresses in consequence of water vapor carriage due to air flow through leakages in buildings. In Germany in 1989, a laboratory examination...