Air tightness and infiltration of building envelopes are discussed as they play a crucial role in the energy consumption of a building.
In this research work for the first time an extended Blower Door method (which is conventionally used for determining the tightness of buildings) was successfully applied to radon diagnosis of buildings.
The relative importance of temperature and wind, however, is largely dependent on the tightness of a building and hence no general formula can be given.
Insulation and air tightness of the building envelope reduces heat loss during the heating season, but can lead to overheating in the cooling season according to the building types owing to the internal heat gain levels.
The normalized leakage NL describes only the tightness of a building.
In the building sector, various adhesive materials are experiencing an increased usage for sealing of overlaps and joints between most commonly used building materials, around penetrations, pipes and windows for increasing the moisture tightness and the airtightness of buildings.
"With the tightness of the market, tenants are looking for buildings where there is space for expansion in a few years but where they do not currently have to pay rent," he said.
Tightness of lateral retinaculum was scored as tight or normal.
In particular the effect of the number of screws used to fasten the panels to the studs, and the tightness of the screws, is studied using seven different configurations of lightweight timber frame building elements.
For countries like Ireland, which has a temperate oceanic climate, a key to achieving NZEB is to have high thermal and air tightness performances of the building envelope.
