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Old 09-29-11, 02:18 PM   #1
strider3700
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Default smoke tested my house looking for drafts. Found lots...

It's getting cooler here so I was planning on putting away my ghetto whole house fan that I use for cooling. Before doing that I decided to use it to see if it could create some negative pressure for smoke testing. It worked well enough.

I used a smoke testing pen which basically looks like one of those eraser pens but instead of eraser it had a really thick candle wick in the middle. just light it, let it burn for 10-15 seconds then blow it out. Packaging says it's good for 30 minutes and I think I may have gotten a little more then that out of it. $7 and it came with two wick things.

Anyways Here's some pictures of areas I found to be leaking.


In a different thread I discussed fixing the warped door frame and having cut the spray foam back away from it with a thin knife. Sure enough the air comes right through there now. the rest of the door that didn't get the foam cut was fine other then right in the corners where I'm still fighting the weather stripping trying for a perfect seal. Some caulking from the foam to the frame is probably the easiest fix to this.


My house has good windows that were poorly installed. The bad ones just have fiberglass insulation jammed in the large gap and then trim nailed on. They leak like this one does. The ones I've fixed by pulling the trim and the fiberglass and then spray foaming are far far better. 5 down 9 to go...


Everyone says framing to foundation can be a bad place. They are right. Caulking will be the quick solution but long term I want to cover the foundation with foam and carry it right to the roof before framing over the area. I did that on half of this wall when building the cold room and it's made a difference that you can feel.


Add in plumbing to the outside and it's even worse.


I've previously mentioned my pass through for wires from my antenna's. I thought it was pretty good. The gap around this wire was 1/16" on half of the hole. The air was coming in so fast you can't even see the smoke. Caulking would work but since I change the wiring so often I'll fill it with loose foam and then tape it up good.


This surprised me. I've previously added foam gaskets to all of the plugs and switches on the outside walls but I didn't realize that if nothing is plugged into the outlet then the air easily moves through it. We have those plastic baby plugs in most but it will very shortly be all.


This one makes me feel dumb. There is a very obvious downdraft coming from the fireplace that we don't use. the damper is closed and I can't see light but it's far from sealed. I'll have to look around to see what I can find to close this properly. I've never noticed that it felt cold around the fireplace but the downstairs woodstove does a good job heating the brick of the entire thing so it was probably just cancelling out upstairs.


I've previously mentioned the gap at the back between the windows when they are partially open. This shows just how fast the air comes through there. It's like having a 1/8" gap the whole height of the window. the foam backing rod worked great closing it up.

Surprisingly all of the roof lights looked good, I had previously worked in the attic so that appears to have worked.

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Old 09-30-11, 08:28 AM   #2
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Nice job! We should all be doing this more often.

One suggestion though. I find it easier to pressurize the house and then look for where the smoke gets sucked out. MUCH easier to see a leak.
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Old 09-30-11, 08:32 AM   #3
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Don't you have to basically fill the house with smoke then?
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Old 09-30-11, 08:46 AM   #4
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You can do that for a dramatic effect to convince the customer that they need air sealing! Naaaahhhh. You just walk around with the smoke pen and do what strider illustrates. The little wisps of smoke will be clearly sucked out of any cracks. The difference between pressurizing and depressurizing is that with the latter you look for air movement based on how it pushes around an already unpredictable stream of smoke. With the former you know exactly where the air leak is because that little stream of smoke that likes to go every which way suddenly becomes straight and goes directly to the leak. So for example he shows that air is coming from the outlet. Well if the room were pressurized you would see the stream of smoke going directly into the holes in the socket. Maybe it isn't the holes in the socket, It might be someplace where there's a gap around something. Pressurize and the smoke pen becomes the golden arrow in the sky pointing to every last little gap, crack and leak.

Last edited by S-F; 09-30-11 at 08:49 AM..
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Old 09-30-11, 11:17 AM   #5
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I agree pressurizing the house would be better. My fan setup didn't seem able to do it though. I'd love to get this done with proper equipment.
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Old 09-30-11, 11:26 AM   #6
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Yeah, a blower door is really the way to go. But they cost $2,700. More money than I'm going to spend on one. With my current rate of business it would take me close to an infinite number of years to just break even. Also they are designed for diagnostic purposes as well as just moving air. Unless you are an auditor or a LEED inspector you don't really need all that jazz. I have a small battery of box fans like you have that I set up. Some times I will rent a blower door from this place down the road but it's something like $100 for the day so it's rare that I do that.

Many builders I know have blower doors. Most of them probably can't even remember how to operate the diagnostic gear. What they use it for it pressurizing a house before insulation and sheet rock go up and test every square inch of everything for an air leak. And also like I said before, it really is pretty dramatic when you pressurize a house, have someone stand outside and then you walk around with a theatrical fog machine. Even on houses that are pretty new and the owners thing it's in great shape smoke will come billowing out of all kinds of weird places. For example I did this several months ago at the beginning of the summer. I only had the fog machine running in the basement. There were giant streams of smoke exiting from below windows. The fog was going up through the walls and coming out under the windows. Nuts. Totally crazy. Wasn't an old house either. A house I'm working on right now... the owners think that their house is "almost too tight" whatever that means. They aren't going to spring for the cost of getting a blower door in there so they just have to take my word. Well they didn't. They then paid two other separate guys to come and inspect the place and they got the same answers each time.

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Old 02-23-12, 04:11 PM   #7
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Hi,
I have a question for S-F.
How do you pressurize a house? I really like your idea of using positive pressure to pinpoint leaks. Wouldn't positive pressure just open the dampers in the range hood, bathroom vents etc., as if their fan was running and relief all the pressure I was trying to build up. Negative pressure would pull the dampers closed.
At our old house, we could always hear the dampers flapping when it was windy outside. Leaks, or a vacuum from the wind passing the exterior vent?
With negative pressure and a smoke stick, I am never sure if my movement causes the smoke to move or is the leak near the smoke or is it a draft from some place else?
Your idea of positive pressure should solve all those problems. Do you think the dampers relief too much pressure, or is there still enough pressure in the house to perform the test? My house is fairly large, maybe the solution would be to test each room, one at a time, instead of trying to do the whole house?
Anyway, thanks for the great suggestion and help.
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Old 02-23-12, 04:40 PM   #8
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"They aren't going to spring for the cost of getting a blower door in there so they just have to take my word. Well they didn't. They then paid two other separate guys to come and inspect the place and they got the same answers each time."

I never understand the reasoning behind why people ask for advice but then pay others after they just got good advice, especially when they will only get the same advice. I know I'm not 'almost too tight'. I can run the bathroom fans, clothes dryer, and atmospherically vented furnace at the same time. Turns out the air is mostly coming from the garage through the sill boxes, easy enough to fix but a big problem until I do especially when the snowblower carb gasket recently released gasoline on the concrete and then negative pressure of the basement pulled the horrible vapor inside.
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Old 02-23-12, 05:00 PM   #9
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I usually do it with a blower door. It moves so much air that fan flaps don't matter. So Much Air. If you don't have a blower door (which I don't because they cost $2700 0.o) just put a couple (or more) box fans in the door to the room you're working on. Seal up any gaps between the door and the fans with cardboard or something. One time I was testing a basement that was by no means air tight and all I did was put a box fan facing out in the door at the top of the stairs and I shot a piece of polyiso that was roughly the size of the remaining space op top of it. Worked like a charm.
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S-F: "What happens when you slam the door on a really tight house? Do the basement windows blow out?"

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Old 02-24-12, 10:49 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Student 07 View Post
Hi,
I have a question for S-F.
How do you pressurize a house? I really like your idea of using positive pressure to pinpoint leaks. Wouldn't positive pressure just open the dampers in the range hood, bathroom vents etc., as if their fan was running and relief all the pressure I was trying to build up. Negative pressure would pull the dampers closed.
Could you cut up some paperboard (cereal box) and place over the vent holding it in place with painters tape?

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