The 2016 Florida legislature delayed the requirement of residential blower door testing until July 1, 2017.
In order to implement the changes, the Florida Building Commission (FBC) convened June 8, 2016. At that meeting they passed changes and approved updates to EnergyGauge USA:
· The reference home for the R405 Performance calculation is changed to an envelope air leakage rate of 7 ACH50.
· “Best Guess” infiltration is allowed, but will default to 7 ACH50 for Florida energy code runs for selections of good, average or poor.
· Proposed ACH50 will be required to be 7 ACH50 or less.
· If the Proposed or measured infiltration entry is < 3 ACH50 a mechanical ventilation system will be required.
Note that the request for a test still shows up on the bottom of the code submittal form. A test is not required of every home until July 1, 2017.
Blower Door Testing Requirement Status June 30th 2015 - June 30th 2016
The Florida Building Commission passed an emergency delay in requiring blower door testing after our software was developed and sent for code approval. Furthermore, the legislature made it a one year delay: see this document for more details. In order to accommodate the delay follow these steps:
On the infiltration input screen you will still need to enter a proposed infiltration rate of 5 ACH50 or less. If you are not including a whole house mechanical ventilation system in your design then enter a value of 5 ACH50. The code report will still show a footnote that the house air leakage should be tested. DBPR and FSEC will work to help educate the building officials that testing is not needed for houses permitted during the delay. Please reference your code official to this URL.
Please note that the delay does not alter the code duct testing requirements. For homes complying with the performance method, only default duct leakage does not need to be tested. To take credit for tight ducts they must be tested. For prescriptive compliance methods, if any part of the duct system (including air handlers), is not in conditioned space then the duct system needs to be tested.
The Florida Building Commission will meet in August. We will keep you updated as to any changes.