Weatherproofing your home

[Horse with no Name]

1. Caulk around dryer vents, exhaust vents from vent fans, any other fittings mounted to the side of your house.

2. Insulate around spigots, television cable jacks, telephone lines and other entry points to your house with expanding foam insulation. Be careful when working around power service cables.

3. Seal between baseboards and floorboards. Remove the base shoe and spray in expandable foam. While preventing drafts, this also stops insects from entering your living areas. Be aware that a little foam goes a long way. Don’t overuse or it will expand too much.

I found these and some other wonderful tips on this page:

http://www.homedepot.com/HDUS/EN_US/energy/en_project_weatherprf_1.html

[sarcasmo]

1. Don't forget the TERRA tape. Oops, I mean duct tape.

[McKenzie]

2. yes, but consider evaporation of moisture

I have worked in this field for 20 years. Normal living gives rise to moisture generation which has to go somewhere. If moisture is allowed to build up in unventilated voids you are asking for trouble...mainly serpula lacrymyns (dry rot to non tekkies although the treatment of dry rot is sadly misunderstood) The benchmark is around 22-25% moisture content after which dry rot spores can germinate and eat the cellulose out of timbers using water as a metabolic agent.

Insulate by all means but think about how the moisture will evaporate out of the building fabric. I spend a large part of my professional life telling people do NOT stop the evaporation of moisture.

[INdemo]

3. In addition ..

check the attic insulation.. Inexpensive blow-in insulation is available at major hardware stores or home improvement stores...A good working humidifier will add to comfort while help sustaining the heat in most areas.

[McKenzie]

4. best bang for buck loft insulation

measured against the capital cost it is one of the the most cost-efficient ways to upgrade thermal insulation. Provided one looks at the related issue of moisture evaporation from a "cold" roof space (assuming insulation at ceiling level without moisture barriers) loft insulation pays.

<edit>spelling

[jmowreader]

5. Oh man, some of that stuff is just so WRONG!!!

1. There are exactly two caulks worth using on the market today: PL Window, Door and Siding Sealant, and Sikaflex Construction Sealant. They're both polyurethane. The advantage of a PUR caulk is that it combines the good points of latex and silicone: it has a very long lifespan like silicone, but it's paintable like latex. I won't sell anything else.

2. Be exceptionally careful of expandable foam sealant. I think the suggestion to squirt the shit between the baseboard and the floorboard is the height of irresponsibility. The main reason is that no matter how little you spray in there, it will probably pop the baseboards off. An even more important reason is that polyurethane expandable foam, while it is curing, is extremely flammable. What works very well, though, is to run a bead of Sikaflex below the baseboard.

3. Use electrical outlet gaskets. These are 1/4" thick pieces of fireproofed foam you put under your outlet covers to seal the air from coming in around the outlets.

4. If you live in the south in a house that's more than a couple years old, it needs insulation under the floor because there's none there.

5. Your entry doors all have compression weatherstripping in the frames. Compression weatherstripping lasts about five years. To replace it, buy a set of compression weatherstripping, pull the old weatherstripping out of your doorframe, and put new weatherstripping in.