Fix Air Leaks And Keep The Warmth Inside

Did you know your home could be leaking the equivalent of an open window’s worth of air from gaps in its building envelope?

That’s the amount of air that escapes the average American home, and it’s costing us in the short and long term by driving up energy bills and making heating repairs and breakdowns of our furnace or boiler more likely.

The question is, how do you hunt down and eliminate, or at least reduce, home air leaks? Let’s take a look.

Finding gaps and drafts in your home

A good place to begin your search for air leaks is in rooms that are noticeably colder than the rest of the house during the winter months. When you’ve identified those, use a flashlight at night to look for gaps in your home’s outer surfaces. Turn the lights out, then have someone stay in a room while you shine the light from the outside; if light comes through a hole or gap, you have the source of your leak. Try this with windows, doorways, at house corners and joints, and even on floorboards.

An even better way to unearth air leaks is to hire a qualified technician to conduct a comprehensive home energy audit – particularly a blower door test. This test depressurizes a home, revealing the location of many leaks. A home energy audit will also help determine areas in your home that would benefit from more insulation. In some cases, the contractor who performs your energy audit can also install on-the-spot measures such as door sweeps and weather stripping to manage the air leaks they find.

Air leak checklist

If you’re not sure where to get started with your air sealing projects in the coming weeks, here’s a checklist courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). You can find more home energy efficiency tips at their website: www.energy.gov.

• Caulk and weatherstrip leaking doors and windows
• Seal air leaks where plumbing, ducting, or electrical wiring comes through walls, floors, ceilings, and soffits over cabinets.
• Install foam gaskets behind outlet and switch plates on walls.
• Inspect stained and dirty insulation for air leaks and mold. Seal leaks with low-expansion spray foam made for this purpose and install house flashing if needed.
• Look for stains on your ceiling paint and carpet, which may indicate air leaks at interior wall/ceiling joints and wall/floor joists, and caulk them.
• Cover single-pane windows with storm windows or replace them with more efficient double-pane low-emissivity windows.
• Use foam sealant on larger gaps around windows, baseboards, and other places where air may leak out.
• Cover your kitchen exhaust fan to stop air leaks when not in use.
• Replace door bottoms and thresholds with ones that have pliable sealing gaskets.
• Keep the fireplace flue damper tightly closed when not in use.
• Seal air leaks around fireplace chimneys, furnaces, and gas-fired water heater vents with fire-resistant materials such as sheet metal or sheetrock and furnace cement caulk.

Become a draft dodger

It’s a good idea to check for drafts in your home periodically; it may not be as airtight as you think! Consider investing in a home energy audit, too, so you can take full advantage of the amazing energy savings from a high-efficiency heating equipment installation.

Want more saving ideas? Contact Vaughn Oil today. We install high-efficiency heating equipment in Rhode Island and can provide a FREE, no-obligation estimate on a new heating system for your home!