Are Your Houses Too Tight?
The airtightness of the building envelope is an important key to understanding the performance of any new house. Uncontrolled air leakage can result in high fuel bills, failure of building components, and increased builder callbacks. As a result, more and more time is being spent by the building trades sealing up new houses in an effort to reduce problems associated with air leakage.
Yet at the same time, most builders are continuing to rely on uncontrolled air leakage through holes and cracks in the building envelope to provide adequate ventilation for the occupants. Newspaper articles and trade journals dramatizing indoor air quality problems in new airtight houses have begun to alarm both builders and homeowners. It is not uncommon these days for builders to hear complaints of excess moisture or stale odors in their brand new houses.
The question on many builders minds these days is; how tight should I be building my houses? After more than two decades of sealing up houses to make them more energy efficient, many people are wondering whether we've gone too far. The answer may be that we haven't gone far enough.
