Safety First: Protecting Your North Georgia Home
Combustion Appliance Zone (CAZ) Testing is a critical safety assessment that checks appliances which burn fuel (such as furnaces, water heaters, and fireplaces) to ensure they are drafting correctly and not pulling harmful gases, like carbon monoxide, back into your living space. This is especially important in tightly sealed, energy-efficient homes or during periods of high airflow due to mechanical ventilation or exhausting appliances.
Benefits of Combustion Appliance Zone Testing
Ensures Family Safety: The primary benefit is the detection of back-drafting, which can draw toxic combustion gases, including odorless and colorless carbon monoxide, back into your home.
Verifies Appliance Performance: Confirms that all fuel-burning appliances are operating within safe temperature limits and venting properly, maximizing their efficiency and lifespan.
Identifies Hidden Air Quality Issues: Reveals negative pressure problems within the home that could be pulling air from dusty attics, crawlspaces, or garages, impacting indoor air quality.
Required for Comprehensive Sealing/Insulation: CAZ testing is often a mandatory safety step performed before and after major air sealing and insulation projects to ensure new home tightness doesn't create a negative pressure hazard.
Our Process
Initial Setup: We begin by verifying all combustion appliances are operating. Technicians set up monitoring devices to measure the ambient air temperature and carbon monoxide levels near the appliances.
Establish Baseline Pressure: The ambient air pressure in the combustion zone is measured while the home is operating under normal conditions.
Simulate Worst-Case Scenario: To test the limits of your home's safety, we temporarily turn on all powerful exhaust fans in the home (kitchen hoods, bath fans, clothes dryers). This creates the maximum possible negative pressure inside the house.
Draft and Spill Test: While the exhaust fans are running, we check the draft of each combustion appliance using specialized tools or smoke pencils to confirm that the flue is drawing exhaust gases out of the house.
Carbon Monoxide (CO) Check: We directly measure CO levels in the exhaust gases of each appliance to ensure they are operating cleanly and safely.
Safety Verification and Report: The appliances are verified to draft correctly and safely under the worst-case conditions. We provide a detailed report on the safety status of your combustion appliances and outline any necessary corrective actions.
