We have spent a stressful three days preparing for our airtightness test. I have crawled around on my knees for hours every day putting a bead of decorators caulk along the base of every skirting board in the house.
I have also cut out round pieces of plastic and taped them over all of the mechanical ventilation vents in each room.
11.30am today was the time to find out if it had been worth all of the trouble.
Our inspector, Andrew, turned up and set up an airtight seal around the front door with a giant fan in the middle of it.
He turned the fan on and it started sucking air out of the house. What happens then is that any gaps allow air to get in to the house. What should also happen is that there should be hardly any air getting in.
All of the work that we had done was very successful, but we didn't realise that the gaps behind taps and pipes, and the underfloor heating manifold would let air in.
Andrew gave us the result of the first test, and we scored 3 point 7. I don't exactly know what that means, but for normal building regulations anything below a 10 point 0 is a pass. Because ours is supposed to be very eco friendly then we were aiming for a maximum of 3.
It was a bit amazing to go around the house trying to plug up air gaps, and very much a panic too.
In the end we got it down to 3.3, and we will now fill in properly all of the gaps that we found. I am confident that once we have done that, then we will be under 3. But at over £250 a go, we are not keen to pay again.
What a stressful day. We went out for a run to calm down and then drank a lot of wine.
In other news, Darren has made some good progress on the fitted units in the living room.