University of Waterloo researchers have developed a new method that could lead to significant energy savings in buildings. The team identified 28 major heat loss regions in a multi-unit residential building with the most severe ones being at wall intersections and around windows. Building enclosures rely on heat and moisture control to avoid significant energy loss due to airflow leakage, which makes buildings less comfortable and more costly to maintain. This problem will likely be compounded by climate change due to volatile temperature fluctuations. Since manual inspection is time-consuming and infrequently done due to a lack of trained personnel, energy inefficiency becomes a widespread problem for buildings.