Ensuring your home performs as promised with a blower door test
We believe every whānau deserves confidence that their home will perform exactly as designed – meaning it keeps your family comfortable year-round, maintains healthy air quality and uses minimal energy to do so. Central to achieving this performance is eliminating air leaks and drafts, which is why the blower door test is a critical part of our quality assurance process.
What is a blower door test?
A blower door test is a precise diagnostic tool that measures how leaky your building envelope really is.
We mount a powerful fan in an exterior doorframe, creating a controlled pressure difference between the inside and outside of your home. By measuring the air flow required to maintain this pressure, we can calculate exactly how much air is leaking through gaps and holes in your building envelope (walls, roof, foundation, windows and doors).
The results are expressed as air changes per hour at 50 Pascals (ACH50). This tells us how many times the entire volume of air in your home would be completely replaced in one hour under test conditions. A typical new build home in Aotearoa might score 4-6 ACH50, where as older homes can range from 10-20 ACH50, meaning all the air you've paid to heat or cool is being rapidly lost through uncontrolled leaks. Our high-performance homes consistently achieve less than 0.6 ACH50.
To put this in perspective: achieving 0.6 ACH50 means your home is 6-10 times more airtight than a typical New Zealand home, dramatically reducing energy waste while creating the controlled environment needed for optimal health outcomes.
Why airtightness creates healthier homes
Eliminating leaks in the building envelope allows us to establish a comfortable and healthy environment where you decide how air enters and leaves your home.
Controlled moisture levels prevent mould growth: By eliminating leaks, we can manage humidity levels through mechanical ventilation, preventing the moisture infiltration that creates mould breeding conditions in wall cavities and living spaces.
Consistent temperatures throughout your home: Eliminating the leaks also eliminates cold spots and drafts, allowing your heating and cooling systems to maintain comfortable temperatures efficiently in every room.
Filtered air quality guaranteed: When your home doesn’t have draughts, all incoming air passes through your mechanical ventilation system's filters, removing pollutants, allergens and other contaminants before they enter your living areas.
Blower door testing as Passivhaus quality assurance
The Passivhaus standard requires rigorous verification that homes perform as designed, not just as modelled. Our blower door test is conducted once the house is sealed (when the building envelope is complete but before interior fit-out) serving as verification that your home's airtightness meets Passivhaus performance targets.
This testing uses thermal imaging cameras alongside the pressure testing to visually confirm that our air sealing work has been effective. We can identify any remaining air leakage paths and address them while they're still accessible, ensuring your home delivers the performance you're investing in.
The Passivhaus standard sets this airtightness requirement because it's fundamental to achieving the energy efficiency and indoor air quality that makes these homes so healthy to live in. Without eliminating the leaks, even the best insulation and ventilation systems cannot perform as designed.
This rigorous approach to airtightness embodies our values: kaitiakitanga through minimal energy use, manaakitanga through consistently healthy environments, rangatiratanga through industry-leading testing standards, and hihiritanga through proven methods that deliver measurably better outcomes.
Making a healthy and energy-efficient home accessible
Using our panel system, we can build homes that achieve exceptional airtightness results at a similar cost to entry-level new builds. Homes achieving less than 0.6 ACH50 use dramatically less energy for heating and cooling (up to 90% less than typical New Zealand homes) creating significant ongoing savings while providing the healthy indoor environment where tamariki can thrive.
Every blower door test verifies that we're building homes designed to support whānau health and prosperity. By choosing performance-verified construction that meets Passivhaus standards, you're investing in reliable comfort, health and efficiency.
