Fuel Poverty

I know this may seem as a an advertisement of our business, but we are genuinely concerned about the impact the recent heating fuel and electricity costs will have on poor and lower income families.

We provide air tightness tests for the new build market.  These tests are required by the building regulations and ensure that new houses are not leaking heated air out through unintentional leaks in the building. An 'acceptable' amount might be anywhere from 3 to 4 air changes an hour (ACH) at 50 pascals.  Basically, this is to say that if there were a 30 mph wind hitting your house in the dead of winter, every 15 to 20 minutes, all the warm air in your house would be replaced with the cold air from outside.  This 'acceptable' level is pretty much a borderline pass in most cases and the shocking news is that any house built before 2009 would not have had an air tightness test and therefore would be much leakier.

We have done over 1000 tests like this in the last 3 years.  From this experience, we're able to know where leaks are going to occur even before the fan gets turned on in the property.

It's hardly ever the windows actually ... it's nearly always the skirting boards, behind kitchen units, boiler rooms, etc.

As part of my qualifications, I had to test my own house and report the results to BINDT which is my governing body.  Well, this test found that I was failing current building regulations for Part L1A even though my house had only been built about 4 years prior.  I was doing 6 ACH and spending about £1200 a year heating a 4 bed detached house near the Pennines.  We get a lot of wind up here, so I went straight at it and siliconed up all the skirting boards, foamed up all the major cracks and put seals on the external doors.  I ended up saving £400 a year after that! Now, I am not laying claim that I can do the same for you, but, I thought my house was in pretty good nick, and it turns out with about £50 worth of supplies and a simple air test I have saved a tremendous amount every year since.

We are able to take on existing property air tightness testing at very reasonable rates in the immediate area. If you are interested please contact us.

Home Testing Yorkshire can be found at www.hometestingyorkshire.co.uk or 01484686649


I hope this helps,

Matt