Building Envelope and Air Barrier Services
Stevenson Consulting is a leader both in large building and residential building envelope and air barrier consulting, performance testing and diagnostics. Stevenson has a staff specially-trained and certified in building envelope and air barrier systems, window testing, whole building (blower door) air barrier testing, and infrared thermography. We have the experience and knowledge to perform the testing necessary to help our customers meet their required standards.
Improving Your Building’s Efficiency
A typical building uses 30% of its energy to compensate for losses due to air leakage across the building envelope. The need to control the air entering and leaving your building is not only an air quality issue; it is also a cost issue. By making a building more air tight, and thereby increasing the building’s performance, you are able to reduce the loss of the conditioned air through the building enclosure. This allows you to reduce the load on the HVAC&R systems and design a more efficiently sized system.
Stevenson Consulting, Inc. provides building enclosure and air barrier consulting and performance testing services that include:
- Pre-design consultation with the project team on air barrier assemblies and systems, detailing, and material specifications.
- Technical plan and specification reviews to ensure that air barrier components, joints, interfaces, and penetrations are appropriately detailed.
- Material submittal review and mockup testing.
- Quality Assurance field observations during construction to identify typical compliant and non-compliant construction methods.
- Chamber and nozzle testing of storefronts, curtain walls, and fenestrations in accordance with AAMA and ASTM requirements.
- Air barrier testing with infrared thermography and theatrical fog diagnostic techniques to identify air leakage pathways.
The Air Barrier Association of America (ABAA) defines an air barrier as an assembly to “control the unintended movement of air into and out of a building envelope.” By reducing the uncontrolled passage of air through the building envelope to almost negligible amounts, the air barrier lowers energy consumption by reducing the associated heating and cooling loads as well as allowing designers to reduce the size of the HVAC&R system requirements.
Since 2007, Stevenson Consulting, Inc. has provided industry leadership in the advancement of air barrier performance. Stevenson Consulting is a technical consultant to ABAA, ASTM, ASHRAE, National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), and the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in their development of the air tightness testing protocol, ensuring our clients that our large building testing methodology and equipment will conform to the requirements of their project including:
- USACE Air Leakage Test Protocol for Building Envelopes
- IECC Commercial Scope and Envelope Requirements Air Barrier Compliance Options
- ASTM E783 Air Leakage Through Exterior Window and Doors
- ASTM E1105 Water Penetration Through Exterior Windows, Skylights, Doors, and Curtain Walls
- ASTM E779 Standard Test Method for Determining Air Leakage Rate by Fan Pressurization
- ASTM E1186 Standard Practices for Air Leakage Site Detection in Building Envelopes and Air Barrier Systems
- ASTM C1060 Standard Practice for Thermographic Inspection of Insulation Installations in Envelope Cavities of Frame Buildings
- AAMA 501.2 Water Leakage Field Test (Nozzle Testing)
- AAMA 502 Field Testing of Newly Installed Fenestration Products (Chamber Testing)
- AAMA 508 & 509 Rain Screen Cladding Systems
- ISO 9972:2015 Thermal performance of buildings — Determination of air permeability of buildings — Fan pressurization method
- ISO 6781 Thermal Insulation Qualitative Detection of Thermal Irregularities in Building Envelopes – Infrared Method
