Air infiltration in Canadian homes - a decade of change.

This paper explores the results of air infiltration and ventilation research carried out in Canada over the last decade and specifically examines its application to low-rise residential buildings. With Canada's cold climate, the reduction of space heating costs by dealing with air infiltration and ventilation issues in residential buildings is particularly important and has been the subject of government and industry initiatives. The results over the last decade have been gratifying. Not only has there been a large number of "innovative" houses built with exceptionally good control of air infiltration through the building envelope and well controlled space heating costs, but this information has been transferred to the general building industry. Current Canadian new house construction is showing significant improvement from the construction of ten years ago. This paper outlines how this change has been brought about and how it is expected to continue.