The most direct way for countries to ensure good building airtightness is to define mandatory requirements with maximum allowable air leakage. This is done by some countries such as Norway, Germany and the Netherlands for all buildings, and France, Spain, Latvia and the USA for certain types of buildings only, with in general a focus on residential buildings. To ensure that the airtightness requirements are met, a mandatory justification is asked for only 3 of these countries: France, Norway and the USA.
The maximum air permeability values are defined depending on different parameters according to the countries: single/multi-family buildings in France; dwellings/other buildings in Norway; the envelope area in Spain; the type of ventilation systems in Germany and Latvia; the building volume in the Netherlands and the location (different value for very mild climates) in the USA.
The required airtightness level for these countries are given in the table below, more details can be found in the AIVC Technical Note 73 [1] from which this table comes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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References

[1] N. Hurel and V. Leprince “AIVC Technical Note 73 – Overview of the trends in building and ductwork airtightness in 16 countries”, AIVC Ventilation Technical Report, Sept 2024, Available: https://www.aivc.org/sites/default/files/TN73.pdf

 

Posted in: Building Airtightness, Country information