Moderator: Nathan M. Gillette, AIA, CEM, LEED AP O+M

The session will consist of three speakers, presenting for 20 minutes each.

Phil Wilson, CxA+BE, BECxP, PEM: Airtightness pressure testing, infrared thermography and air leakage diagnostics are frequently used to determine whether new construction meets specific airtightness guidelines as set forth by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Navy, ASHRAE and other organizations. However, this valuable technology is horribly underutilized when it comes to identifying opportunities for saving energy and energy-related costs, reducing humidity and prolonging structure life by air sealing our existing commercial, industrial and institutional buildings. This interactive presentation will introduce participants to the diagnostic tools used, the substantial air-leakage reductions possible and the energy savings being realized as more organizations are finding out that neglecting their building enclosures just isn’t an option.

Meghan McDermott, BECxP, CxA+BE: The examples of envelope retrofit projects for different type of schools—private and public universities and community colleges—in this presentation each have different decision criteria for approving projects. Private universities typically have more access to funding and often can act as their own authority having jurisdiction over projects, whereas, public colleges and universities often must rely on energy-performance contracting to fund projects and may be constrained by the State Office of Construction approvals. Until recently envelope projects typically were not included in energy-performance contracting projects because the return on investment was not considered favorable. Furthermore, many of the enclosure projects were previously described as “weatherization”, which is considered a maintenance item, not a capital improvement project. Recently, as the importance of air leakage has become elevated, and the acceptance that air sealing a building is correcting an obsolete and flawed design approach that allows massive levels of air leakage, envelope repair projects are becoming included in university improvement efforts. McDermott will describe the envelope inspection, specification and repair efforts for three schools: Sewanee University, East Carolina University and Johnston Community College.

Francis Conlin, P.E.: Two affordable housing, high-rise apartment buildings will be discussed. Both suffered from significant rainwater and condensate intrusion into the envelope assemblies resulting in damaged insulation, damaged structural components, indoor air quality concerns, and continual maintenance required to cleanup and repair the reoccurring moisture damage. The 8-story, 100-unit apartment building enclosure had a thin brick exterior cladding, which had been retrofit over the original exterior insulation and finishing system cladding (EIFS). The primary motivation for the skin retrofit was that the original EIFS cladding leaked; however, the multiple rainscreen cladding retrofit continued to allow water to enter the wall assembly. The 14-story, 290-unit steel frame and brick clad building had similar problems with both condensate and rainwater running into the wall assembly causing damage to units below. Previous window and packaged terminal heat pump renovations were found to contribute to the water intrusion. This presentation describes how root cause for the moisture intrusion incidents was diagnosed and how different remediation approaches were taken for each building.