Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
 | 1 | initial version |
While I know blower door tests are the standard ways to look at infiltration on existing buildings I'm wondering if anyone has every tried or considered looking at thermal vs. pressure differential to study infiltration. The approach I'm thinking of would be to bring a number of air and surface temperature data loggers into a space or spaces for a few hours, ideally when the inside and outside temperatures have a big differential, and probably when the building is mostly unoccupied, and when there is little to no solar gain through windows. The approach would be to shut off the mechanical system and watch the temperatures float over a few hours, or however much time is needed. After data collection is done you would hard code the surface temperatures into the model, let infiltration float, and try to optimize to the recorded air temperatures.
Too much trouble? Not accurate enough to be useful? or will there be too many variables that still aren't controlled enough isolate infiltration? What originally got me thinking about this was hearing about some connected residential smart thermostats that would try to provide diagnostics if it saw a problem. For example if given the current weather conditions if the house wasn't holding temperatures as expected it may suggest a window might be open.
