Pressure testing is an accepted method of determining the airtightness of building envelopes, but current testing standards do not address measurement of airtightness of attached dwellings. This is a special case due to potential airflow across party walls. Airflow into the test dwelling from adjacent dwellings can be eliminated by equalizing the pressure in the test and adjacent dwellings. The significance of party wall leakage in 14 row house from five different projects was demonstrated by comparing results obtained by this procedure with those obtained by standard test methods. A proposed alternative method of correcting for party wall leakage involves computations based on measurement of indoor-outdoor pressure differentials in dwellings adjacent to the test dwelling while the latter is pressure tested. A pilot field study of this method was carried out. Results from correction by pressure equalization were compared with results from correction by computation, An average agreement within 6.5% was found.

Units: Dual