What is the USACE Air Leakage Test Protocol?
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Air Leakage Test Protocol for Building Envelopes is a specialized blower door testing protocol developed by USACE's Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) for use on military installations and federal government facilities. It establishes specific test procedures, performance metrics, reporting requirements, and qualification standards for personnel performing air leakage testing on DoD construction projects.
The protocol draws on ASTM E779 and ASTM E3158 as its technical foundation but adds requirements specific to military construction: qualification requirements for testing personnel and equipment, specific reporting formats, and performance targets that reflect DoD energy performance goals. The current version is Version 3, published in 2012, which incorporated lessons learned from large-scale implementation of air leakage testing on Army construction projects.
The USACE protocol expresses air leakage in units of cfm75 per square foot of above-grade building envelope area — a metric that normalizes results to building surface area rather than volume (as ACH50 does), making it more meaningful for comparing buildings of different sizes and shapes. The benchmark target for DoD construction is 0.25 cfm75/ft² of above-grade envelope, which is substantially more stringent than typical commercial building requirements.
