Blower Door / Infiltrometer Information

Dr. Energy Saver measures how leaky your
home is with a diagnostic Infiltrometer
machine - aka Blower Door.

Air leaking in and out of your home will most certainly increase your heating and cooling costs, in addition to causing other problems such as loss of comfort, air quality, mold, drafts, and causes building durability issues to maximum your home energy savings.

Dr. Energy Saver will measure exactly how leaky your home is and find all the hidden air leaks in your home using a sophisticated diagnostic machine called an Infiltrometer - otherwise known as a blower door test.

Our blower door uses a calibrated fan and control module to create the equivalent of a 15 mile per hour wind blowing against all sides of your home.  This allows us to easily identify air leakage through the cracks, gaps, holes and openings in your home.  We use a harmless smoke tool to find these leaks and show them to you.  It is an eye opening experience to really see all these air leaks, which you should think of as money leaks in your home.

The blower door will tell us how many times all the heated or air conditioned air in your entire home will leak out and have be replaced with new unconditioned air from the outside each hour.  This is known as Air Changes Per Hour.  We will then compare this number to what it should be in a efficient healthy home.

Blower door tests tell how many times
all the heated or cooled air in the home
will leak out and need to be replaced with
new unconditioned outside air each hour.

Leakier homes have higher air exchange rates than they should.  As a result they cost more to heat and cool.  This is one of the most important services that Dr. Energy Saver can perform on your home - assessing the overall leakage rate, finding these leaks, and ultimately sealing them so you can begin saving energy and money starting today.

There are other problems from leaks as well.  Because hot air rises, air leaks out of the upper levels of your home.  For every cubic foot of heated or air conditioned air that leaks out, and new cubic foot of unconditioned air must leak in to replace it.

The new air coming in not only has to be heated and cooled, but contains allergens such as dust and pollen, and humidity.  Your heating and air conditioning system has to run more to make your home comfortable, which costs money of course, but also shortens the life of your system and requires more maintenance. 

Air leakage is the first and more important frontier in saving money on your energy bills.

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