Home sealing: it’s efficient and makes cents
Cost of living is on the rise at the same time concern for the environment has becomes more widespread. If you’re looking to cut back on energy consumption, make sustainable choices and save money, think about air sealing your home.
As temperatures rise and fall, your home expands and contracts, creating gaps that leave it with an incomplete building envelope. Air sealing is simply closing a home’s holes and gaps. Sealing this envelope means you use less energy to heat or cool, while reducing your carbon footprint derived from energy-intense HVAC systems. Proper sealing and insulating can save you up to 20 percent a year.
Checking for Air Leaks
You don’t have to rely on a qualified technician's “energy audit” to determine where leaks are located. A quick and easy checklist can include:
- Inspect where two different materials meet. Examine all door and window frames
- Shut doors and windows on a piece of paper. If you can pull the paper out without tearing it, you have a leak.
- Examine electrical and gas service entrances, outdoor water faucets and where dryer vents or cable lines pass through foundation walls.
- Hold an incense stick in front of windows, doors and where exterior meets interior. Drifting smoke indicates an area that needs to be sealed or insulated.
Sealing Air Leaks
Once you determine where the leaks are located, you need the proper sealant to eliminate the leaks.
Premium latex-based sealants are ideal for sealing smaller gaps both indoors and out. They’re flexible, making them excellent sealants to handle joint movement. And because they’re latex-based, they’re paintable, low odor, low VOC-content and clean up easily with water.
A foam sealant can be used for larger holes and gaps, except around heat sources such as chimneys and stoves, which require a specialty sealant. For windows, doors, pipes and vents, window-and-door-specific foam sealants feature the same sealing and insulating properties as polyurethane foam without the threat of over expansion, so windows or sockets won’t pop out. Look for a formula that is toolable, and cleans up easily with water.
