You know your home has adequate insulation against winter’s chill. You also had your heating equipment cleaned and serviced. Finish the energy efficiency plan by following this guide to weatherstripping your Fort Wayne area home.
What Weatherstripping Is
Weatherstripping is the flexible material between the window and window frame, or the door and door jamb. It can be vinyl, plastic, metal, adhesive-backed foam or felt. It's a thin and lightweight material, not as durable as your home itself.
What It Does
The flexible, thin materials expand and overlap to seal out air leaks. These gap-fillers are designed to take a lot of friction, since windows and doors are constantly rubbing as you open and close them. You spend hard-earned money heating your Indiana home’s air – why let it escape in the winter? In summer, weatherstripping keeps outside warm air out.
Sizing up Your Situation
Weatherstripping begins with a scouting mission. Inspect every window and door. Remove and replace torn or damaged material. Measure and record the perimeters of every opening in your home:
- Windows
- Doors
- Garage doors
- Attic entryway
- Interior doors leading to unheated spaces (crawl space or unfinished basement)
Add up window perimeters as one group, and door information as another set of measurements. Windows can get by with less durable materials than doors. For each group, add 10 percent to your measurement to account for waste and errors.
Shopping
At your home improvement store, examine the many options. Mix and match materials. A door needs a rigid sweep along the bottom, and probably v-shaped metal for the sides. Windows may do best with adhesive-backed foam.
Applying
Give new materials time to adjust to outside temperature before installing. Start at the back of your home so that your skills improve as you move around to the more visible front. Remove old material and clean the area thoroughly. Cut single long strips of weatherstripping for each side of an opening—no little pieces. Work carefully, leaving neat joints to seal air leaks.
For an additional guide to weatherstripping your Fort Wayne area home, please contact us at Hartman Brothers Heating & Air Conditioning.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in New Haven, Indiana and surrounding Fort Wayne area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about weatherstripping and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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