Air Tightness in Buildings Half-Day Seminar: Air Leakage Control in Buildings

Mark Lawton, Vice President, will present Air Leakage Control in Buildings: A Canadian History at this half-day seminar jointly presented by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists (APEG) of BC and the British Columbia Building Envelope Council (BCBEC).

Session Overview:

Control of air leakage in buildings has been an obsession of Canadian building science for about four decades. In the last decade, we are seeing regulators from other regions of the world come to the realization of how important air leakage control is for building durability and conservation of energy. As we are confronted with new standards for air leakage control, it is worth reminding ourselves of what we have learned on the journey from building science to building practice.

This half-day seminar will be taking a holistic look at air barriers and air leakage. First, we will look at the history of air barriers, and will review the science behind it and the significances and/or consequences of its introduction back in the late 70’s and early 80’s. We will then hear about the new City of Vancouver policy surrounding new building air tightness requirements, a policy that is somewhat mirrored in the BC Step Code. To complement this, we will also review lessons learned from the introduction of similar requirements in other jurisdictions, in particular the City of Seattle. We will conclude by looking at the whole building air leakage testing, including the setup and the equipment needed.