To make the process of having a Home and Duct Performance test as smooth as possible, you can follow the steps below. Many of the steps can be done in the days leading up to your test while ‘for safety reasons’, you might want to wait unit we arrive (or just before) to handle others. Hopefully you’re as excited as we are about learning what your house has to tell us about its Health, Comfort & Efficiency.
Watch the video.
- Visit BarronHeating.com/service to see the 6 minute video that explains the whole home and duct performance test process. Doing this will save us valuable testing time when we are at your home and may answer questions you have.
Take the Comfort Check-up Survey.
- Also at BarronHeating.com/homeperformancesurvey is a quick 3 minute survey regarding how you experience comfort and air quality at home. The answers you give will allow me to dial in to the opportunities that are most valuable to you as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Locate your electric and natural gas utility account numbers.
- Your account number may in some cases give us the ability to pre-approve you for certain utility rebates.
Open up all the interior doors.
- This allows for the natural air flow of all zones of your home during testing.
Clear access to all the registers (aka grilles).
- In order to measure duct leakage I will need to access all the heat and return registers with a piece of equipment that needs about 2.5 feet of vertical clearance. Any that we can’t get to will be masked off and not used for the test. This will not affect the accuracy of the results.
Check to make sure the filters in your return ducts are relatively clean.
- These will be located either at the grills in the home or in a box attached to your furnace.
Make sure all windows are closed.
- We don’t want to measure your house leakage with a hole like that in your wall.
Make sure any wood fireplaces are cleaned out and closed as much as possible.
- This includes closing the flue.
- Do not build a fire in the fireplace in the 24 hours before the test.
- When the house is under pressure, it is possible to pull a small amount of ash or chimney debris into the home if we haven’t properly sealed its path.
Turn all gas appliances, such as fireplaces and wall heaters, to “OFF”.
- I will take care of the furnace and the water heater if necessary, but you know how to operate the appliances in your home better than I do.
We will be double checking that all these conditions have been met before we begin the testing process, but anything that can be done before we arrive will allow for more time sleuthing and discussing solutions.