With good planning, you can avoid the most common leaks

The designer’s job is to guide the builder in producing quality work. On small construction sites, there are many factors at play. If the end result isn’t high-quality, who will the client blame? When designing a small house, the designer’s expertise must be taken into account, and, if necessary, instructions must be made clear enough—so that even a layperson can understand them.

Keep these tips in mind when designing your next home. This will help you achieve a higher-quality result and a more satisfied client.

Leaks are often easy to prevent

In modern construction, airtightness plays a significant role in a building’s functionality, energy efficiency, and health. Making a building airtight isn’t rocket science, and yet leaks can be found in many places.

The most common leaks occur around the seals of exterior doors. Often, builders simply leave the doors unadjusted. The problem is noticed leak test when locating leaks. As a designer, you can, for example, create a checklist to go over certain points one last time to ensure that nothing has been overlooked.

The joints between the wall and the roof deck, as well as between the wall and the floor deck, also often leak. The tightness of these joints can be improved by clarifying the instructions and requiring the builder to take care. Often, instructions are full of text, so few people bother to read them, or they are missing entirely. Good instructions are kept on-site and explain things clearly using, for example, photos and short sentences.

The single most significant air leak occurs through the protective pipes in the utility room. Sealing the protective pipe is easy—for example, using urethane foam. In a typical single-family home, simply sealing the protective pipe can reduce total air leakage by up to 15%.

One of the key elements of high-quality construction is therefore a good compaction guideline. Finally, the quality is verified through measurements and corrected if necessary.

I hope you found these tips helpful. Below is a list of the most common leak points in new single-family homes.