Have you had your home air tightness tested before refurbishment?

I’m doing an MSc at the Centre for Alternative Technology and am particularly interested in the problems of refurbishing traditional homes. My particular field of research is moisture and ventilation in stone built dwellings - as more of these dwellings are significantly improved we will need to be more aware of what the leakage level is in this type of building to ensure indoor air quality. There’s also a widely quoted rule of thumb of “twice the normal level of ventilation” which I’m trying to get to the bottom of.
For my practical research, I’ve had a group of dwellings tested, which have come out tighter than I had expected from anecdotal evidence.
Has anyone got an air tightness tests for un-improved homes? (irrespective of construction)
What views have people got about this area?

Hi,

I did indeed do air-tightness tests (twice!) before continuing my refurb work:

http://www.earth.org.uk/testing-a-house-for-air-leaks.html

Rgds

Damon

Thanks for your comments Nick, Damon and Paul,

Nick - The test results forthat house in Sheffield (Robey Street?) were pretty poor before refurb (about 21m3/hm2) - are you aware of any others? If I have the wrong address, please can you send me more info
Damon - interesting blog - can I just confirm the construction and approx age
Paul - any test results would be a help...

BRE did quite a lot of tests around 2000 and there's some other academic work which doesn't use the full envolope, so it difficult to use. There really seems to be a lack of work in this area - or is it just me who thinks it's important?

Thanks again,
Diane.

There are some data from past monitoring projects on the Leedsmet web site
e.g.
York Energy Demonstration Project at http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/as/cebe/projects/york.htm
Derwentside Project at http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/as/cebe/projects/derwentside.htm
We have some newer data from other refurbishment projects in York and Harrogate but the reports are not yet available on-line.
UCL also did a project looking at changes in airtightness following installation of replacment DG windows. If you google "The Impact of Replacement Windows on Air Infiltration and Indoor Air Quality in Dwellings" you should get to the preprint of the published papers on the UCL web site.

In general, older houses with wet plastered stone or brick walls can be quite airtight - especially those with solid floors - and tighter still once the windows have been replaced. In comparison, large numbers of relatively new masonry houses built with a plasterboard wall finish have been found to be very leaky.

Jez