Blower Door Used in Air Sealing Project in Sterling, VA

Monday, May 13th, 2019 by John LeVan

Challenge

Comfenergy was called to this Sterling, VA location to seal leaks in a room containing a bank of servers so that the fire suppression system could be converted to an air displacement system rather than a water based system. Air Displacement Fire Suppression systems are use in order to save the computer equipment from any water damage if the fire suppression system were to deploy. They rely on the room containing the displacement gas for a period of 10 minutes.

Solution

We used a Blower Door to measure a baseline of uncontrolled air infiltration, and we made progress as we took action to plug the pathways found for uncontrolled air infiltration.

We were able to reduce the air flow by 50%!

Project Summary

Engineer: John LeVan

Technician: Anthony Dotson

The server room. Currently protected with a water based fire suppression system (see sprinkler head), gas based system is the brass nozzle seen in the ceiling (mid right hand side of photo).

Challenge: many penetrations to the room that allowed for uncontrolled air infiltration.

Blower Door operated by Anthony - used to establish baseline and measure progress.

Baseline: 561 cubic feet per minute at 50 Pascal pressure difference.

End Point: 293 cubic feet per minute at 50 Pascal pressure differential.

About the author

John LeVan

Partner

John LeVan is a Mechanical Engineer trained at Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science. John also has an advance degree in Operations Management from Cornell University.

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Blower Door Used in Air Sealing Project in Sterling, VA

Challenge

Solution

Project Summary

About the author

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