Stellar Building Performance recently completed blower door testing in Fort Pierce for an owner builder at a new single family residence in the Indian River Estates community, in St. Lucie County. The home passed its envelope leakage test at 2.57 ACH50, under the 3.00 ACH50 figure its energy documentation called for.
A 2.57 ACH50 Result in Indian River Estates
The blower door moved 832.9 CFM at a 50 Pascal pressure difference, across a conditioned volume of 19,482 cubic feet. That works out to 2.57 ACH50.
ACH50 expresses the measured air leakage relative to the volume of the home, allowing the blower door result to account for differences in building size. A large home and a small home can move very different amounts of air through the fan and still land on the same ACH50, which is why the ratio rather than the raw airflow is the number the energy documentation and the building department work from.
The number this house had to beat was not a universal one, and that point gets flattened in a lot of writing on this subject. Florida’s prescriptive path caps envelope leakage at 7 ACH50 in Climate Zones 1 and 2, but this project was documented on the performance path, and the target that applied was the ACH50 value specified in its own energy calculation. Here that figure was 3.00. A different house with different documentation gets a different number, which is why we always test against the paperwork the project was actually permitted under.
If you have a project in Fort Pierce that needs an envelope leakage test, you can request blower door testing in Fort Pierce and we will get it on the schedule.
Tight Enough to Require Mechanical Ventilation, and It Was Already Planned For
Coming in at 2.57 ACH50 carries a consequence past the pass itself. Under the Florida Building Code, Energy Conservation, a dwelling unit that tests below three air changes per hour has to be provided with whole house mechanical ventilation, and the building department verifies that the installation is in place.
That requirement catches people out more often than it should. A builder does everything right, chases a genuinely tight envelope, earns a good number, and then learns at close out that the good number came with an obligation attached to it. At that point the options are all bad ones.
This home was not in that position. Mechanical ventilation was planned into it from the beginning rather than bolted on after a test result forced the issue, which is exactly the order those two decisions should happen in. Designing for the ventilation first and then testing to confirm the envelope is a far calmer way to arrive at the same place.
This is also why mechanical ventilation testing is becoming a standard part of what we do on site rather than a separate trip. The tighter Florida homes get, the more of them land under three air changes, and the more of them need that system verified.
Building in St. Lucie County and not sure whether your project will need mechanical ventilation? Get in touch and we can talk it through before it becomes a scheduling problem.
An Owner Builder in Indian River Estates
The client on this one was the homeowner, building his own house.
That is a harder road than hiring it out, and I have a lot of respect for the people who take it. An owner builder carries the scheduling, the trades, the inspections and the code compliance personally, on top of whatever else their life already asks of them. Every decision lands on one desk. When something slips, there is nobody else to hand it to.
So it is genuinely rewarding to show up at the end of that process with a fan and a manometer and hand back a number that says the envelope was built well. This is a beautiful home in a good spot, and the result reflects real care in how it went together. We are happy for the family that gets to live in it.
That is probably my favorite part of this particular Project Update. The number is good, but the story behind the number is somebody building their own house and getting it right.
If you are an owner builder in Fort Pierce working through what your permit requires, we work with owner builders directly and are glad to explain the testing side before you need it.
Blower Door Testing Across Fort Pierce and St. Lucie County
Fort Pierce sits in St. Lucie County, and we cover the whole county for envelope and duct testing, alongside Port St. Lucie and the unincorporated areas around both.
Envelope leakage is only one of the tests a Florida project typically needs. Where the ducts fall under the compliance path being used, duct leakage testing in Fort Pierce is usually part of the same close out, and we coordinate the two so they are not two separate visits where one will do.
If you want the longer version of how this test works, what the equipment is doing and what happens when a home does not pass the first time, we keep a complete blower door testing FAQ on the site.
Stellar Building Performance provides blower door testing, duct leakage testing, mechanical ventilation testing, energy code calculations, pre drywall inspections, third party quality assurance and HERS ratings for builders, contractors and owner builders throughout Brevard, Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin and Okeechobee Counties.
To get testing scheduled on a project in Fort Pierce or anywhere else in St. Lucie County, request services here.
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