Starting a New Business

When we finished building our new home, we called for a final inspection.  The only item that the inspector called out said "Blower Door Test" required.  We asked what that was and where we should go to get it done.  The inspector just said "you might try calling your heating contractor or the insulation contractor."  So we pulled out the invoices from those companies and started calling. Neither did the test, so I headed to the internet.  Most of what I found there was advertisements for equipment.  We did finally find a company based in Renton that agreed to come out to do our test.  

However, during our research, we took several classes that explained the test and the equipment. More investigation showed that the requirement for the test is fairly recent - the standard was imposed by the federal government, to be adopted by the states and jurisdictions within the states.  Washington State adopted the code in 2012, and Snohomish County enacted their requirement on July 1, 2014 - just days before we applied for our building permit.  Permits filed prior to July 1 do not require the test.  

Long story short, we realized that our experience fit well with this test.  So we bit the bullet and bought the equipment and began forming our new company to exclusively do blower door tests.  We have successfully learned the equipment and done several tests of our home and homes belonging to family members.  While the equipment and set up of the new business took a healthy chunk out of our savings, we look forward to building a successful business.

It is very interesting to see just how airtight current construction is compared to older buildings.  Our new house has approximately four air exchanges per hour, while our older log house has 17.4.  We knew it was hard to heat the log house in the winter, but we had no idea just how much air movement took place through gaps in the logs, ceilings and walls, older windows, and older doors.  It has given us a bunch of new projects for that house!

Our website:  blowerdoortesters.com went live this week. Everything is in place for us to begin taking orders. Please check out our website and feel free to forward any questions to us at:  ronandrosi@msn.com.