5 Ways to Draft-Proof Your Home

Draft-proofing your home is important in the wintertime – it is also important in the summer time too. In the summer, you may think that drafts are nice, but if you are blasting your air conditioner, you will realize that drafts could be causing your energy bills to raise and your home to have uneven temperatures. The same goes for the winter – if you want to remain cozy and comfortable, you want to make sure to find all the drafts in your home and you want to seal them. Draft-proofing your home usually only takes a few hours – for smaller jobs. A bigger draft-proofing job could take the whole weekend, but it is better to start sooner rather than later. Here are five ways to draft-proof your home.

1. Make sure that your window casings are completely sealed. If you live in an older home with larger windows, you may notice that every time you get near the windows, you experience a cold draft – even when your windows are closed. The reason for this is simple: you have an air leak in the frame of the window. Basically, the caulking and sealant has come loose and your job is to re-seal the frames. Resealing the window frames is easy and should take you no time at all.
2. Make sure that you re-seal electrical outlets in your home – or any kind of wall outlets. Electrical outlets, cable outlets – any appliance outlet in your home could be a potential energy leak. If you want to re-seal these energy leaks, you need to remove the covers and then place sealant around the area where the outlet was cut out of the wall. After you re-seal, simply screw the cover back on.
3. Make sure that there are no ductwork obstructions. A draft could be coming from inside your home and not outside. For instance, if you have something blocking part of your ductwork, or if you have a leak in your ductwork, it could cause warm or cool air to leak in a part of your home where it is not supposed to leak. So, you want to make sure to do a thorough investigation of all your ductwork for these obstructions.
4. Make sure to re-seal pipes under your sink – either in your kitchen or bathroom. When it comes down to it, your pipes could be causing a major draft in your home. Do you feel a gust of wind every time you open one of your cabinets? Chances are that you have draft – all you need to do is seal the pipes and place caulking over any areas that are exposed to the outside.
5. Make sure that you caulk and re-seal any areas of the home that have serious leaks. Your home could be full of these tiny leaks and air drafts. So, it is important to find these leaks and then use the proper materials to fill them. Usually, various types of sealant and caulking will do the trick.