In a series of social meetings in pubs, eateries and garden outbuildings, Keith Bartlett, Rob Jenkins and John devised plans to set up an air leakage testing business. The driving force was the Kyoto Protocol, which laid out ambitious goals to reduce global carbon emissions. A key factor in achieving these goals was reducing energy consumption in buildings.

Air Leakage Testing Ltd (ALT) was launched leaving Rob, John and Keith with the daunting task of acquiring everything needed to do the testing – equipment and software weren’t off the shelf at this time. A lot of blood, sweat and beers went into pulling together a rig of testing equipment and creating software to accompany it. Unfortunately, it was stolen from a ‘guarded site’. Undeterred, they started again and were soon air testing to CIBSE TM23 (the 2000 version) and the fledgling Approved Document L.

A fresh-faced, enthusiastic test engineer joins the ALT testing team called Steve Hayden. We will return to him and his rise to air leakage legend status.

Approved Document L is revised with greater reference to air leakage testing. There is a requirement of under ’10’ for tested commercial buildings and a sampling regime based on ‘dwelling types’ for houses and flats. ALT gains UKAS accreditation for testing to the Air Tightness Testing & Membership Association as its 7th member.

Approved Document L is changed again and, as part of further reductions in the overall energy requirements, almost all buildings need to be tested. The majority need to be tighter than ‘6-8’. Air testing equipment is developing and large fans replace the trailer-mounted monsters that were originally needed for testing large buildings. New test standards are introduced by ATTMA.

The energy requirements are tightened again, meaning most buildings need to achieve ‘4-6’ or less. Fans for testing houses and flats continue to get smaller, which increases the volume of testing that can be done in a day. In the beginning, testing a house would keep an engineer occupied all day and the cost reflected this. Now engineers can undertake 20 or more tests in a day (but don’t tell them how easy we had it in the ‘olden days’!).

ALT is purchased by Robust Testing Solutions Ltd (comprising Tom Gregory, Scott Bartholomew and the returning Steve Hayden). Robust had been undertaking some of ALT’s testing for a while. They built on the foundations of the company, without losing the technically correct, yet friendly and helpful approach that ALT’s reputation had been built on. The first step was adding UKAS accredited sound testing to ALT’s services.

Air testing of smoke shafts, plenums, hospital isolation suites, PassivHaus and existing buildings was added to the services. Partnerships formed with trusted experts to offer the full suite of related services, including thermography, acoustic consultancy and energy assessments.

The latest Part L is released which further tightens air testing targets and sees a return to CIBSE TM23 (a new version). Celebrating 20 years in business, Air Leakage Testing continues to expand and develop whilst retaining the underlying ethos. That is, to support our clients in meeting requirements, whilst playing a small part in improving building performance and reducing carbon emissions.