In April of 2015, we performed chamber testing of a building, during construction, following ASTM E1186 Sections 4.1.6 (using smoke) and 4.1.7 (using liquids).
The contractor applied a spray air barrier on the face of the masonry block walls and the building owner was concerned that the material wasn’t applied thickly enough. We built our testing chamber on the exterior of the wall to examine a small portion of the completed wall:
Small pin holes were visible throughout the tested assembly:
Utilizing theatrical smoke, there didn’t appear to be much air movement around these small pin holes. However, when a liquid solution was applied to the tested surface, air movement became very evident.
The chamber was very helpful in demonstrating that the air barrier had not been applied thickly enough to totally eliminate all potential leakage sites.