Air and duct sealing along with blower door testing

Wow, several months since an update.  No, we have not been sitting around and not working on the house.  It was actually "done" some time ago, but I have not gotten around to updating the blog.



So here it is, preparing for one of my most anticipated moments.  Final air sealing and duct sealing.
Air sealing has been completed during the construction phase, but the attic access needs sealed up.  So to do this, I take the drywall lid and install 2 rows of peal and stick neoprene depressible gasketing. 

 

I then install blocking on the side and a pull latch on each side to suck the gasket down and seal the attic access.  This will create an air tight hatch.

 

 

 Energy Star 3.0 certification requires several building techniques to be met, but also a series of testing.  One is the blower door test and the other is duct leakage.  I was confident I would hit the 3.0 @ 50 pac test requirement, but I was anxious to see if I hit my goal of less than 1.5, or better yet, 1.0.
Below they are setting up the blower door.  They install a sealed enclosure over a doorway and a fan sucks the air from the house.  It measures how much air is pulled through the house, and ultimately how much air is pulls from the exterior through cracks.   

 Here is the controller that measures the air leakage.  He did 2 tests, one at 25 pascals and another at 50 to verify each result.  The yielded the same thing.  Every point counts in this test, as very leaky homes are about 5.0+ @ 50 pascals, "tight" is at 3.0 (where most new homes test out around), very tight is 1.5, and one of the most stringent testing methods done by Passivhous requires .6, which is incredibly difficult to achieve and rarely done without taking extreme measures to the home's construction.  The numbers on the controller get converted with some basic math based on my homes total volume.  The testing worked out to be 1.08 @ 50 pac!  While it wasn't the 1.0 I was after, it was very close and I was satisfied with the results.  The tester new the home would be tight, but he didn't think it would be this tight.  He said it ranks in the top for tightest homes in 300 mile radius they test in.  He said hes only done one in the last several years that was below 1.0. 

 Energy Star 3.0 requires duct testing and leakage 8% or less of the square footage of the house.  This means I need to have a cfm leakage result of 95 cfm or less for the total house.  So my role of the build tested out well, lets see how the subs did.

Well the contractor "sealed" everything up well, or so I thought.  The first test was completed, and we were over 800 cfm leakage!!!  A lot of times they can run a smoke test, find the minor leaks, seal, and retest.  Obviously 800 cfm is far to big of an amount to seal up real quick.  So I called the mechanical contractor to come back, seal things up better, and retest.  They were not overly cooperative as they thought they "sealed it better than any house they have done".  While I would probably agree, that doesn't mean other houses they have done were good enough and certainly doesn't matter to the ES testers.  So they came back and did some more air sealing, although very minor, but I took it upon myself to do quite a bit. 

Walking around with the rater he pointed out leaks around the registers and how they can add up to a significant amount of leakage.  So I needed to seal them up.  Here is what I did.

Here you can see inside one of the returns.  The blocking and pans are completely caulked off and taped off.  While its not pretty, it seals the air so each room can have proper supply and return. 

Below you can see tape around the registers to the flooring.  The cracks around the registers and subfloor leak a lot of air, or it forces air between the subfloor and the finished floor.  The tape sealed this joint and directs all air into the space.  The registers also have foam gasketing around the perimeter of them to create a tight seal with the register to the tape.

With that being done, it was time for the 2nd test on the ductwork, so I scheduled it and crossed my fingers.  I could not be there for the 2nd test, but a guy from the mechanical company was there. 
Test started, and did not go well again.  It tested out at around 500 cfm leakage, so we cut just over 300 cfm off by sealing up the registers.  However to the readers out there, realize that but just sealing up the registers, I recaptured approximately 1.5 BEDROOMS worth of conditioned air to be directed into the space they were intended.  This obviously increases efficiency of the hvac equipment as it brings and maintains your rooms at the proper temp.  Regardless, still a ways from the 95 I needed, so a 3rd test will be required (and more money).

They set up a smoke machine this time and found leaks in the ductwork.  Apparently the thermal pans on the returns were leaking like crazy.  (thermal pans are the shiny cardboard looking ductwork used for returns.  It is leaky, hard to seal, and they were not supposed to use them, but did anyway, seen here).

The rater recommended ALL pans removed, resealed, caulked and taped, reinstalled.  Obviously the mechanical contractor did not think this was necessary and did not want to do it.  I actually agreed.  I did not think the pans needed removed either, but could just be resealed.  I made a deal with the contractor and said I would take care of all sealing and testing, if he pays for the retesting.  He agreed, so I got to work.

 

below you can see the register foamed to the subfloor and the mastic (contractor did) around the duct joints.

 

 Where the thermal pans return to the subfloor, the joints were pretty leaking and hard to seal any other way, so I simply foamed them,  Filled the gaps nicely.

 Below you can see how thermal pans are hard to seal to framing.  Crossing a beam they need to be sealed to it.  There were cracks along this entire pan where it was leaking, so I resealed it completely.

 

Well, I thought I was complete, so I scheduled the 3rd test, needing that 95 max leakage.  They showed up, and taped off all registers (just the same they do all testing).  They then install a fan from the furnace to suck air through the ductwork. 

 

He inspected everything again, thought it looked "significantly better", and we retested. 

180 cfm.  Got a nice lump in my throat.  Still nearly 100 over.  So we set up the smoker and went to work seeing if we could find it.  After letting it run for a while we went upstairs to see if anything was leaking.  Not a spec of fog upstairs, which was great.  However the fog was building pretty quickly in the basement but we could not find it.  Finally, the rater randomly see this:

As you can see above, 4 pex water lines and several wires are going through a joist, which is meant to be part of the sealed return duct.  These were not sealed at all, so there were 8 holes on each side, so 16 total holes right here.  I grabbed the caulk gun and filled them up.  Can not believe I missed these holes when I was sealing.

 

So we ran the test again, and it came in at 67 cfm leak!  About 6% leakage.  Happy day for me, for them, and now the testing is complete for Energy Star certification.  Paperwork is filled out, so time to submit for review.  (now I wait for the large rebates coming my way!!)

General Update of various things......

While the siding is now complete, I thought I would first post up some pictures of some of the details done on the house. 

 

The clerestory windows below are caulked and tap over top of the foam.  The black trim boards are then caulked and screwed through the foam. 

 

Here is the strapping over the 2" thick foam.  Ripped 3/4" plywood screwed with 4.5" screwed into the studs.  The Tyvek is left over from wrapping the front.  I still put Tyvek over the front to tape off the windows. 

The ICF windows are handled differently.  Due to the vertical members of the ICF, the window flange is over top of them.  This allows water to run down and behind the flange.  In order to break the drainage of the wall, I ripped a slanted reglet into the foam, through the strips.  I bent and inset some flashing over the windows.  I Set it in caulk, and then caulked the crack again. 

Just to make sure it doesn't get past the flashing, I brought the Tyvek down over top and taped it off to the metal.  Most windows, except for the kitchen one here, is only about 1' from the truss bearing, so it was not a big deal.

Jumping away from those details, lets move on to some other items completed. 
The electricians finally came back and got about 90% of the house done.  Here is a shot of the front lights on the columns.  I went with up/down lights to highlight the beams.  Obviously the sun is still up, but at night its really dramatic. 

All appliances are up and running (except range hood).  I got the dishwasher hooked up.  We went with a Kenmore Elite since it was one of the quietest we could find.  We decided to pay more for the quiet model since its open to the living room.

 Our sink is a black faux granite.  It got a lot of good reviews, so time will tell how it goes.  So far I like it. 

Range hood ready to be installed.  The outlet needs to be moved some in order to make it work.  It can move about 650 CFM on high.  We shall see how it works. 

We built the window wells out of retaining block.  I do not like the look of the premade well, plus we made it large enough to let it more light.

Front of the house as it stands today.

Basement photos- future music/workout room

Future movie/family room

 

We got the garage ceiling drywalled

I got the fireplace tiled and grouted.  The mantel is a simple piece of 4x12 cedar sitting on 2 4x6 pieces lag bolted to the studs in the wall.

The media cabinet with some items in them.  I hooked up a receiver to test the speakers in the walls and ceilings.  After some tweaking and running a new wire, all is well and worked great. 

 

 

Here is a close up of the tile.

Installed the mudroom cabinets and counter so we could start using it.  This is located adjacent to the kitchen.  I can see us using this for a lot of kitchen overflow things.  A nice place to pile dirty dishes, wash vegetables, etc. 

mudroom cabinets

 Prior to hanging sheetrock, I had to clear out about 8 bird nests in the trusses.  This one had newly hatched birds, as in within a day or 2.  I lifted the nest and set it in the corner of the garage.  We enjoy watching the mom AND dad constantly bring food and feed them. 

The inwall speakers.  I went with Polk Audio 8" rounds, and they sound very good.  Nice and clean, with a touch of base.  I would have preferred more base, but for 8", it had a good enough amount.

The kitchen with the above cabinet lights on.  They are double T5 linear fixtures, and they put out a tone of light. I built a sloped base for them to sit on to help project the light out into the room.  Since I am not using can lighting in the kitchen, these are the main indirect light source.  At night they light up the entire kitchen very nicely.  The only shadowing is directly under the cabinets.  Obviously the under cabinet lights take care of this.  I am happy how it turned out and is working, especially since I do not have a sea of cans in the ceiling.

Other side of the living room.  Turns out I forgot to run the speak wire from the right speaker to the media cabinet.  Luckily its the closest speaker in the house.  I channeled into the drywall, tuck a speaker wire in, and mudded back over it.  Problem solved!

Interior work continues

 When its raining, we move inside.  Still lots to do in here, but its slowly getting there. 

Below is our hardwood flooring we selected.  We went with strand bamboo.  Not only do we like the way it looks, its also one of the hardest hardwoods to put down.  We have done scratch tests with this products and some others including Pergo XP, and this is very durable.  Hopefully it holds up to the little boy's claws as they run around. 

Speaking of boys...Chester and Boa is sometimes making the trip with us to work for the day.  Here he is inspecting the tile that goes up on the fireplace.  It is a 6x24 tile that will be in a vertical, random ashlar pattern.

The laundry room got its cabinet installed along with the floor trim.  This room is basically done pending some staining the window and installing the sill.  Cork is installed on the floor.

Master bedroom is coming together.  Closet door installed, trim installed, and need some more final touches prior to carpet.

 Master shower is tiled and grouted.  Needs cleaned some more, but its getting there.

Cabinets in the bathroom.  Went with full height and depth "kitchen" cabinets for additional space and more comfort standing there vs standard bathroom vanities. Yep, also from Ikea.

Stone floor in the shower.  Needs a lot of cleaning.  This was a bear to grout and clean, so it has been a process.  But I think it will be worth it. 

The white tile wraps around the wall and around the bathtub.  The grout lines line up across the floor to the walls.

The black floor tile- needs more cleaning obviously.  Its a fairly dark black when its clean.  Really like this tile. 

Ventured back to Galena IL. finally and picked up our table we bought in one of the stores there over New Years.  I can not recall the wood, but we really liked the natural distressed and cracking look.  This is a really heavy table.  It is made of solid 1 1/4" boards on top and solid tapered 6x6 legs.  It is a 5x5 size so we will have 2 chairs on each side. 

close up of the graining of this wood.  This will look great in the dining room.  Love mixing old with new/modern.