I am working on a project where blower door testing is required for a multi-family facility. The building is 36 stories tall with a mechanical penthouse. The ASTM standard states in section 8.4:
"Measure and record the indoor and outdoor temperatures at the beginning and the end of the test and average the values. If the product of the absolute value of the indoor/outdoor air temperature difference multiplied by the building height, gives a result greater than 200 m °C (1180 ft °F), the test shall not be performed, because the pressure difference induced by the stack effect is too large to allow accurate interpretation of the results."
If my building is too tall to perform blower door testing because the results will be inaccurate, what other alternatives does LEED accept to comply with the credit?
Michael Smithing
Director - Green Building AdvisoryColliers International Ltd.
304 thumbs up
May 8, 2013 - 4:33 pm
If the internal and external temperatures are the same then the building height can be infinite and the test can still be performed.
Temp difference * height < 1180, so
height/1180 = maximum temperature difference
Good luck with the weather!