Enclosure Best Practices: Roofs, Walls, and Floors

Building enclosures – the roof, walls, and floor – are the first line of defense between nature and people. Enclosure performance is optimized when air sealing and insulation – two under appreciated and typically underperforming features – are done to high-performance standards rather than the status quo. The preceding class in our High-Performance Fundamentals program (How Buildings Work; Science and Buildings and Science in Buildings) covered the scientific principles needed to effectively design high-performance buildings. This class covers installation — the practical application of those principles on the job site – the hands-on activities that differentiate ‘business-as-usual’ from high-performance construction. These include best practices for air sealing, insulation installation, and window installation, along with the tools and methods (e.g., blower door testing) used to measure the quality of work, and the metrics against which the work can be evaluated.

Learning Objectives

After attending this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Describe preferred methods and materials used for air sealing different types of building openings, and how to test the results
• Explain the difference between conventional insulation practices and “Quality Insulation Installation (QII)” methods, and how QII is verified
• Identify five common building enclosure installation flaws and how to avoid them
• Quantify the magnitude of the gap between minimum energy code compliance and high performance, where all energy features are confirmed with building performance test methods