Air leaks allow cold outside air to sneak into your home and steal your comfort and money. As the cold air gets into your home, your heating system is forced to work harder to deliver more hot air continuously, driving up your energy bills. The first step to winning the fight against cold air leaks is finding out where exactly the leakage is occurring. Here are some useful tips to help you achieve that.
Visual Inspection
The most common place for warm air to leak out of your home is around doors and windows. You can spot existing gaps by simply looking over door and window frames. If you see daylight around the frame, that's a sign of a leak. Having someone go outside at night and shine a flashlight over window and door frames will also reveal locations of large air leaks. If you observe from inside dark rooms, you'll see the light in the areas where the leaks are taking place.Also check for gaps and cracks around:
baseboards
switch plates
light fixtures
attic hatches
vents and fans
Smoke Test
You can locate the leaks that are less easily visible by conducting a smoke test.
Turn off your furnace and any other combustion appliances on a cool, windy day.
Walk around the potential leak sites with a lit incense stick. You'll know you have a leak if the smoke wavers or is blown back into the room.
Call in a Pro
If you want an accurate gauge of your home's cold air leaks, hire a technician to conduct a professional energy audit. He or she can perform a thermal infrared scan or a blower door test to measure your home's airtightness and locate sources of air leaks.
The energy you lose through cold air leaks can be equivalent to leaving a window open throughout the winter, so locating and sealing these leaks is well worth the time and effort. If you want to truly maximize your Broken Arrow home's energy efficiency by scheduling an energy audit, contact the professionals at Air Assurance.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about other HVAC topics, call us at 918-217-8273.