Air Sealing: Your Home Needs It
Air Leakage In Places You Don’t Think Of
When the weather gets colder and the snow starts to fall, we tend to cozy up in our homes escaping from the outside bitter cold. In the Winter, it is pretty common to start to feel cold drafts of air throughout your home. As an easy solution, you may think turning up the heat will solve the cold draft issue but in reality, it only is costing you more money. Reducing the amount of air that leaks in and out of the home are not only a cost-effective way to cut heating and cooling cost but also provides a more comfortable and healthier indoor environment for the homeowner. It may seem like your home is well insulated but in fact, most homes suffer from heat loss throughout different areas of the home you wouldn’t expect.
How Does Air Leakage Happen?
Air leakage occurs when outside air enters and conditioned air leaves your house uncontrollably through cracks and openings. Your home was built with cracks and openings. Builders drill so many holes from wiring to lights not worrying about the issues it can cause for the home insulation. During cold weather, too much air may enter the home while when it is warmer not enough air enters. Air leakage can happen in areas you don’t even realize.
Here are some common locations in the home that air could be escaping:
- Plumbing and wiring through floors, walls, and ceilings
- Chimney
- Attic access hatches, doors, and drop-down stairs
- Recessed lights and fans in insulated ceilings
- Cracks, gaps & holes in drywall or plaster
- Electrical outlets and switches
- Gaps around window and door trim
- Dropped ceilings & soffits
- Leaky basement windows
- Rim joist in the basement or crawl spaces
The three key areas where air leakage is the biggest issue is in the attic, basement, and ducts. More air leaks out of the home through the attic than anywhere else. The air that is escaping is usually replaced by air being sucked in on the lower levels of the home. What is common for homeowners to do is caulk or weatherstrip the areas that may be exposing air. As that may solve the issue, it tends to only work for about a year causing the homeowner to redo it over and over again. Air leakage is very hard to fix by yourself as a homeowner so it is nice to have a reliable community contractor come out to your home and help identify the air leakage in your home.
Warm air rises and leaks out at the upper levels of your home, and the home sucks new unconditioned (cold, hot, damp) air in at the lower levels.
Air Sealing: The Perfect Solution For Comfort
So what exactly does Air Sealing do for your home? Well, Air Sealing helps eliminate leaks and makes the home more comfortable and efficient. We look at three main places in the home to air seal. Air Sealing the attic is the first place we look as that is where the most significant air is leaking out. The basement is the second place because cold air tends to leak in there. Lastly, we look to air seal the main living area of the house to take care of whatever spots may be missing there. The longer you have to deal with air leakage in your home, the more money you’ll be wasting and the less comfortable your home will be.
