Air Tightness of Buildings in Finland

There are no requirements of building air tightness in Finland. Buildings always have thermal bridges and air leak routes, whose impact in decreasing comfort depends on the structures and the way of constructing. Uncontrolled air leaks are cooling the structures and causing draft and, in the long run, defects. These air leaks and thermal bridges can be found only by thermal scanning. In Finland building air tightness has been measured for over 20 years. The procedure includes two stages, in which the target is scanned by a thermal imager. The paper is based on the results of over 200 tests of one-family and detached houses. The air tightness level has improved, but there are still problems in the structural details. The monitoring procedure for therm scanning of buildings should be further developed (there is no generally accepted practice at the moment), as well as air tightness requirements should be created.