As it is now a well-known fact that air leakage can significantly impact the building energy performance, more and more countries are introducing requirements or recommendations on new buildings’ airtightness level in their energy performance regulation. One key aspect to encourage good practice and good airtightness levels in new or retrofitted buildings is to properly include the air infiltration impact in the EP calculation. Nevertheless, for a given building and at a given point in time, an accurate calculation of the infiltration flow rate under natural operating conditions would require determining the precise distribution of leakages and pressure across the envelope which is not feasible in practice. 

As a result, many simplified models have been developed and are used around the world to estimate the infiltration rate for EP calculations, with different levels of accuracy. AIVC’s Ventilation Information Paper n°46 “Building airtightness impact on Energy Performance (EP) calculations” describes those various methods and discusses their limits. 

This webinar is organized with the support of the Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre and TightVent Europe.  Both initiatives are facilitated by INIVE.