Five Signs Your Home Is Leaking Air
Signs of Air Leaks in Your Home
Air leaks can be a big, expensive issue for homeowners. They can be hard to locate and even harder to seal without the right solution. But there are several signs to look for to see if your home is leaking air.
Drafty Home
A drafty home is the most obvious sign you have air leaks. But don’t assume they are due to your home’s doors or windows.
Research shows that only 20 percent of home air leaks are from doors and windows.
High Utility Bills
If you see an increase in your monthly utility bills, or notice it costs more to heat and cool your house compared to someone with a similarly sized home, this can be due to air leakage.
Hot and Cold Rooms
If you live in a two-story home with a basement and notice the second floor is hot and the basement air is cold, your ductwork is probably leaking.
Excessive Dust
Homes that quickly accumulate dust are a likely sign of duct leakage on the home’s supply ventilation system. This can cause negative pressure in the house, which draws dusty air in from attics, crawlspaces, and garages.
Indoor Allergies
Family members’ allergies act up depending on the season and your location. But if they act up frequently in the home, it’s because of outside air leaking in.
“If you live in a two-story home with a basement and notice the second floor is hot, and the basement is very cold, your ductwork is probably leaking.”
Air leaks negatively affect your home energy efficiency and can increase your energy bills significantly. Here are some ways you can check for air leaks throughout your home.
How to Find Air Leaks in Your House
Learn how to find air leaks throughout the whole house by following these steps:
Perform a Visual Inspection to Locate Leaks
Finding leaks outdoors can be difficult to impossible, but a visual inspection can help you find spots where the home’s interior or insulation is exposed.
Easy spots to examine include where your home’s siding meets the foundation, exterior brick, or chimney.
In addition to looking for missing siding, look for gaps, cracks, and openings on all exterior corners of the home. Check to see if faucets have enough caulking where pipes meet the home, along with other utilities like the gas supply or the electrical service.
Moving from outside to inside your home, continue to check for air leaks around utilities for proper caulking where they enter the home’s interior, including sink drains.
Then check electrical outlets and switch plates for drafts. If light-colored carpets next to interior walls are dirty, this may indicate a pressure imbalance in your home.
Check Common Sources of Air Leaks
Everyone assumes a home’s windows and doors leak the most air, but the leakiest surface of your home is the attic floor, followed by its ductwork.
As a result, it’s critical to look for plumbing and electrical vents on the attic floor and make sure they’re properly sealed. You can also run your hand along exposed ductwork to try and feel leaks, especially where pieces of ductwork are joined together.
Most of your home’s ductwork won’t be easily accessible, if at all.
Professional contractors can seal your ducts from the inside, using Aeroseal duct sealing technology.
This eliminates the errors and inconsistencies of manual duct sealing and ensures all of your home’s ductwork is sealed, even the inaccessible ducts located behind walls and in the attic.
“Everyone assumes a home’s windows and doors leak the most air, but the leakiest surface of your home is the attic floor, followed by its ductwork.”
Put Your Home to the Building Pressurization Test for Air Leaks
If you find air leaks in your ductwork, your home may have a pressurization issue. Pressurization ensures air is distributed throughout your home evenly and efficiently.
A professional blower door test will determine if there is a problem.
This pressurization test pushes air out of the home using a blower door and this test should be performed by an HVAC professional. It can help identify small problems with your HVAC system before they become big and expensive.
Contact Aeroseal for Air Sealing Solutions
If you follow the above steps and determine your home is leaking, you can do something about it. Contact Aeroseal today, to speak with a professional and learn more about eliminating air leaks in your home.
By Ken Summers, vice president of training, Aeroseal
Excerpts from this story appear in the Realtor.com article, “How to Detect Air Leaks and Stop Hemorrhaging Money on Your Energy Bill.”
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