Airtightness Testing in Naas
Blower-door testing that measures how much heat your home leaks through gaps, and shows exactly where. Covering Naas town centre, Sallins, Punchestown and the surrounding area.
Airtightness Testing for Naas homes
Naas's 1990s and 2000s estate homes were built tighter than older stock but rarely to today's standards, and they often show leakage at downlights, attic hatches, around soil pipes and behind kitchen and utility units. Many owners here are weighing up a heat pump, and an airtightness test is a sensible early step, as it shows whether simple sealing will bring the house to the level a heat pump needs. Town-centre homes are leakier and need a different approach.
How homes in Naas lose heat
The 1990s and 2000s estates were built under older building regulations with partial-fill cavities and modest attic insulation. They usually rate C, and the gains come from attic top-ups, checking cavity fill and sealing airtightness gaps. Town-centre homes have solid walls and need a different approach.
Typical housing: Town-centre period terraces and pre-war housing, with 1990s and 2000s estate housing across the wider catchment.
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 Naas: questions
Do you carry out airtightness testing in Naas?
Yes. We cover Naas and the surrounding Co. Kildare area, including Naas town centre, Sallins, Punchestown. Town-centre period terraces and pre-war housing, with 1990s and 2000s estate housing across the wider catchment.
Is there a grant for airtightness testing in Naas?
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 Naas.
We cover Naas and the surrounding area. Tell us about your home and we will arrange a visit, usually within a week.