Plug Up Your House

If your well-insulated house is cold and your fuel bill is literally going though your roof there's a good possibility that you have leaks or cavities in the walls where the air is cooling down the walls or floors or both. It may seem like common sense but cavities can occur from a variety of different ways.

Pests, like squirrels and mice, can burrow into the fiberglass batt creating air passages. Just a small tunnel can produce a venturi tube effect where pressure from a large space into a narrow space accelerates the speed of the air, forcing it through outlets and light fixtures.

Window and door jams, as well as the frame, can shrink after a few years and pull back from the frame. Even an eighth of an inch around one window frame can create quite a heat drain. Now, multiply that 8 or 10 windows.

A professional blower test would expose these cracks. This when a tent is hooked up to the opened front door and a huge fan sucks the air out of the home. You can actually hear squealing where the air escapes. Now you know where they are and can take caulk to the leaks.

In an older home, fireplaces can steal a great amount of heat, even though the damper is down. If you are thinking about burning wood in your fireplace to save money on heat you are literally putting it up the chimney.

Fireplace fires suck the heat from the home along with the exhaust. Since the damper cannot be put down until after the embers have cooled the chimney becomes a race-track for heat loss. Until you can get it fitted for a proper fresh-air fireplace insert it's better to go up on the roof and plug and then cap the chimney.