Air sealing your Wichita Falls home ensures that cold, conditioned air is best kept inside during the hot days of summer and heated air indoors during the frigid winter months. Improperly sealed homes waste this conditioned and heated air your HVAC system produces, and can cause a cascade of other problems including poor indoor air quality, excessively high utility bills, depressurization and a comfort sacrifice for your household. For the best in air sealing techniques, consider committing to the following three-step action plan for your home.
Seal the Biggest Holes First
For a quick, large-scale difference, concentrate on finding the big holes first. These are found not around doorways and window frames, but rather in the ceilings between your attic and living floors and the unconditioned crawl spaces and basements beneath your ground floor. Some of the largest holes in a home come from mechanical chases, bathtub drain holes and attic kneewalls.
Move on to Middle-sized Fish
Once the largest holes have been repaired (this may even include parts of ceilings missing after, say, a leak has occurred), it is time to move on to air sealing medium-sized holes. Middle-sized air leakage often can be found around piping or the furnace flue, where a square has been cut out of the building material to make way for a circular object. By sealing in between the two, the homeowner can substantially increase his or her HVAC efficiency.
Tackle the Small Holes Last
A huge mistake many homeowners will make when air sealing their homes is to focus first, and often only, on the small things and, for whatever reason, ignore the larger, more obvious causes of wasted heated and conditioned air. Only after you have sealed the bigger holes is it time to get down to caulking the gaps and cracks surrounding windows and doors, and adding spray foam to cover the places where electrical wires penetrate the walls.
For more information on proper air sealing techniques, contact the HVAC professionals at James Lane, proudly serving the Wichita Falls area since 1957.
