Airtightness Testing in Kildare town
Blower-door testing that measures how much heat your home leaks through gaps, and shows exactly where. Covering Kildare town centre, The Curragh, Irish National Stud and the surrounding area.
Airtightness Testing for Kildare Town homes
Rural homes around Kildare town and the Curragh face wind across open ground, so air leakage through old windows, doors, floors and roof junctions has a large effect on comfort and oil bills. Town houses and terraces share the period profile of solid walls and leaky floors. A blower-door test is often the first step for these homes because sealing gaps is cheap compared with the heat being lost.
How homes in Kildare town lose heat
Rural homes near the Curragh are exposed to wind across open ground and often have solid or stone walls, oil heating and little insulation, rating E or worse. Town houses share the solid-wall profile. These homes have some of the biggest potential savings in our service area.
Typical housing: Town-centre period houses and terraces, period semis, and rural and village housing across the surrounding area.
How airtightness testing works
An airtightness test pressurises or depressurises your home with a calibrated blower-door fan fitted into an external doorway. By measuring how much air the fan has to move to hold the pressure difference, we can put a number on how leaky the house is, expressed as air changes per hour or cubic metres per hour per square metre of envelope.
Airtightness Testing in Kildare town: questions
Do you carry out airtightness testing in Kildare town?
Yes. We cover Kildare Town and the surrounding Co. Kildare area, including Kildare town centre, The Curragh, Irish National Stud. Town-centre period houses and terraces, period semis, and rural and village housing across the surrounding area.
Is there a grant for airtightness testing in Kildare town?
Airtightness work carries a €1,000 SEAI grant when it is part of a home upgrade through an SEAI One Stop Shop. We can advise whether that route suits your project. Grant amounts are set nationally by SEAI and change from time to time, so check seai.ie before applying. We confirm what your home is likely to qualify for during the survey.
What does an airtightness test involve?
A calibrated fan is fitted into an external door frame and used to pressurise or depressurise the house. The fan measures how much air is needed to hold the pressure, which gives the leakage rate. We then trace where the air is getting in with smoke and, where useful, a thermal camera.
Do I need to prepare my home?
Close external windows and doors, leave internal doors open, and make sure we can reach the attic hatch. Fires and stoves need to be out and cold. Allow two to three hours for a typical house.
Can a house be too airtight?
A house can be airtight without being stuffy, as long as ventilation is planned. Airtightness controls uncontrolled draughts; ventilation then supplies fresh air where and when it is needed. We advise on ventilation whenever a test shows the house is getting tighter.
Is an airtightness test needed for a heat pump?
Heat pumps work best in well-sealed, well-insulated homes, and many retrofit projects measure airtightness before and after the works. A test tells you whether draught-proofing is needed before a heat pump goes in.
Book a free survey in Kildare town.
We cover Kildare Town and the surrounding area. Tell us about your home and we will arrange a visit, usually within a week.