Older homes are notorious for being drafty, but guess what? Lots of newer homes are drafty too. So whether you have a new or an old home, what's a beleaguered homeowner to do? You're tired of trying to heat your home in winter, knowing the warm air just rises up to the ceiling and seems to be lost in space while your home's occupants shiver at ground level.
There are some solutions for a drafty house, but be advised, it's not necessarily an easy or cheap fix. Nevertheless, let's take a look at what you might be able to do.
Why Do I Have a Drafty House?
Quite often, a house is drafty because of minute cracks around window and door frames, at baseboards, around an attic hatch, and because of holes in exterior walls for pipes, wires, and cables. These holes contribute to draftiness but aren't the main culprit.
As warm air rises, it creates a vacuum and pulls in cold air from the outdoors through the cracks we just mentioned. The warm air is forced upward, where it might heat up a second story, making it stuffy and uncomfortable, and then travel farther into the attic, where it is lost to your efforts to heat your home.
While air-sealing those cracks with insulation, caulk, and weatherstripping will help diminish the draftiness of your home, it's not the only remedy.
You also need to insulate the attic to stop those warm-air losses. Furthermore, you may also need to add insulation around the foundation of your home.
Insulating the Attic and Foundation to Prevent a Drafty House
You should bring the R-value of the insulation in your attic up to about 49 — the R-value being a measure of how effective your insulation is at stopping heat transfer. R-49 translates to as much as 15 inches of insulation on the floor of your attic.
You may also need to hire a professional to air-seal and insulate with two-part foam or foam board and apply sealant to the wooden panel where your foundation meets the rest of the house.
For more on fixing your drafty house, contact Air Assurance of Broken Arrow.