Air leakage - the good and the bad…
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When working with under floor air distribution systems the biggest elephant in the room is air leakage. The under floor air system will not provide all the benefits if the system is not functioning properly. Air loss, air leakage, low velocity from diffusers, warm perimeters are all pitfalls of a system that is working improperly.
I have been a part of many UFAD projects in my time, and one thing i can say for certain is there are a lot of items to cover to ensure the plenum holds its integrity.
Before we get too far along, we need to separate the 2 types of plenum leakage - we have category 1 and category 2.
Category 1 - leakage that occurs OUTSIDE the occupied zone, for example, the perimeter glazing isn’t sealed properly and the air is leaking outside!
Category 2 - leakage that occurs within the occupied zone, for example, floor electrical boxes that have slight leakage.
It is extremely important in a UFAD project that the raised flooring installer has significant experience on UFAD style installations, an inexperienced UFAD/RAF installer can cause major headaches when it comes to commissioning the project. An experienced UFAD/RAF installation should be able to mitigate and catch a majority of the the potential issues before they become a problem. There is nothing worse than getting all the under floor work done, covering it with an access floor and then finding out that you suffer from 30% leakage.
Having a contractor and a team of trades that work together and all buy-in to this type of distribution is very helpful, finger-pointing after the fact doesn’t help solve the problem.
Where to look….
The perimeter of the project, are the mullions and glazing sealed tight?
The perimeter drywall, has the drywall been sealed to the slab?
Drywall penetrations, any conduits or penetrations made NEED to be sealed, typically this is where good communication comes into play. If there needs to be a penetration, typically we need the person who made the hole responsible for sealing or at the very leas bringing it to our attention.
Penetrating walls, are they sealed and caulked?
Floor penetrations’, are they sealed and caulked tight? This could be wires, cables, electrical etc.
Under floor cable trays - sometimes these pass through walls and plenum dividers, they need to be sealed
These are but a FEW of the many areas that need to be checked for air seal and tightness, having a good and experience raised flooring contractor will help greatly when working with under floor air. We at Cook’s Construction pride ourselves on ensuring every project is built and installed to the absolute best of our ability. We rely on repeat business and promote the use of UFAD because we believe in it and we know that when installed correctly it is the absolute best air delivery method out there!
Please check out the rest of our webpage and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to call - thank you so much for reading, we look forward to working with you on your next project!
