BPI Certified

Case Study: Air Sealing Opportunities

Air sealing customers' homes is important because unwanted air movement affects customer comfort, reduces home performance, increases energy use, and can cause moisture problems. This case is from the Final Inspection report from a QA visit for a utility weatherization program.

The program installing contractor didn't do a blower door test at this house because there was no door from the apartment to the outside.

	However, there was a large void above the customer's apartment and between the floors of the building. The void was approximately the same square footage as the apartment and has perhaps an 8 foot ceiling. Even though there was 8 feet of space above the apartment, there was no insulation at his ceiling level. The heat pump air handler was located in the void between floors (right side of photo).

Also, several of the interior walls were connected to the void between floors. This allowed free movement of air between floors and into the walls. This air movement carries heat away from the walls and into spaces that don't need to be heated. This means more energy was used to heat more space than necessary.

Finally, there was no insulation between apartments. The air temperature in the void between the floors was very close to the same temperature as the apartment itself. These observations suggested to Pure Energy's Final Inspector that the heating and cooling loads for the apartment would be reduced by adding insulation at the ceiling level and air sealing the wall tops.

Pure Energy called the utility weatherization contractor back to fix these and other problems that he missed.