It’s no use trying to create an airtight home if you don’t know how airtight it actually is!
To help us find out how we had gone as far as making our building airtight, John from Efficiency Matrix came round to conduct a Blower Door Test.

Part of the test is wrapping or covering the obvious places where the air would be leaking – so all the windows and doors.

 
Once that was done, the fan was fitted in the front door and hooked up to John’s laptop, which began monitoring the airflow about the house.

The original Passiv Haus Standard in Germany is 0.6 ACH. ACH stands for Air Changes per Hour, which means that the air volume in the building changes by the specified rate in the space of an hour.
 
Australia doesn’t have a standard to meet, but the 5×4 Project came up with an ACH of 6.
Before you judge too much, it’s important to know that the UK Passive House standard is 10 ACH, putting us well within their regulations.
 
There are also many other things we can do to further air-tighten our building (like paint, oil and permanent seals), which we will undertake before the final tests.