How To Check Your Home For Air Leaks
People often spend the majority of the summer months indoors, avoiding the hot sun. Air conditioning creates a comfortable indoor environment for tolerable summer conditions. Running the AC system, however, invariably leads to higher energy costs, primarily if your HVAC system isn’t operating in an optimum fashion.
To enjoy optimum levels of indoor comfort, it is also vital to ensure that your home doesn’t have air leaks. If hot air can enter your home, then your cooling system has to work overtime to create comfortable indoor temps. This issue causes your energy costs to soar. Following are several ways in which checking for hidden air leaks throughout your home will allow for efficient summer cooling. We also discuss several reasons why this check should be performed well before the hot months of summer.
Check For Air Leaks To Achieve An Energy Efficient Home Stockertown PA
Conducting an air leak check is relatively easy to do. Thus, most homeowners can complete this task on their own. Start by visually inspecting your air vents and ducts. Some of the other areas where you may find air leaks include:
- windows and doors
- ducting, electrical wiring and plumbing entry points through the ceiling, flooring, and walls
- at switch plates and outlets on your walls
- insulated areas
- gaps around baseboards and windows
- furnaces, water heater vents, and fireplace chimneys
- thresholds beneath doors
Check For Air Drafts By Performing The Smoke Test
A smoke test is a basic test for household air leaks that people can easily do on their own. Start by closing all of the windows and doors throughout the home. Every combustion appliance, including water heaters and furnaces, should be shut off as well. Next, turn on all kitchen and bathroom exhaust vents. That will produce negative pressure in the building that will ultimately suck the outside air in. Using a lit stick of incense, check for air leaks by placing the stick near doors and windows. If there is any change in the movement of the smoke, this could indicate a leak.
Have A Reputable HVAC Service Make Sure That Your Home Is Energy-Efficient
An additional choice is to hire a third-party to perform an energy audit on the property. Your auditor will conduct energy efficiency tests that can identify areas with leakage that you may miss during a casual and far less formal inspection.
Prevent Air Drafts With A Blower Door Test
A blower door test is one test that your auditor might complete. To perform this test, your home will be sealed up by the auditor. They will fit a door frame within the building with a special fan. This fan will pull indoor air outside of the home once it’s been turned on. Doing so creates lower air pressure indoors. After the fan has been turned off, a smoke stick will be applied to identify areas where high air pressure is flowing back into the building via a leak or crack.
Seal Your Home To Increase Comfort And Limit Your Energy Spending
After you have found leaks and identified their exact location, the next thing you need to do is to seal them up to prevent future energy loss. Adding a fresh layer of caulk over any leak or gap is a very convenient and common solution to this problem. You also have the option of installing weatherstripping to seal up gaps that exist along doors and windows. You can adjust thresholds to get rid of gaps that are allowing air to leak through.
Adding additional insulation is another great solution, especially if you know that your current insulation is insufficient for keeping cold air trapped indoors. Work with seasoned professionals to have old insulation replaced so that cold air is no longer able to travel outside.
Benefits Of Checking For Air Leaks Throughout Your Home
Checking your property for air leaks will do a lot more than merely lower your summer cooling costs. A home that is leak-free and properly maintained will make it possible for your HVAC system to operate at optimum levels of efficiency. Consequently, your HVAC equipment will last a lot longer than it would if always forced to work overtime.
When you check for air leaks ahead of the summer, you can ensure your comfort indoors as soon as the temperature starts rising. Waiting to repair cooling and ventilation issues in the middle of summer could leave you dealing with long, hot days of discomfort, and stale, humid air. This situation is worth avoiding, particularly if you have aging adults or small children living in the home.
Conclusion
Keep your home cooling system in good condition. Check for drafts and leaks now or contact a trusted local HVAC service to do this inspection for you.
Get in touch with R.F. Ohl to schedule an air leak test or a comprehensive HVAC maintenance appointment.
The HVAC technicians at R.F. Ohl understand what HVAC systems need for efficient operation while creating optimum indoor comfort. As stated above, an AC system that’s energy efficient will use less energy and help you control your utility costs. Moreover, we can assist you in identifying any air leaks in your home to further lower your monthly energy costs and ensure even higher levels of overall efficiency.
Every one of our technicians adheres to a comprehensive AC tune-up checklist to make sure that the air conditioning systems we inspect are going to work exactly as they should, all summer long. We offer affordable HVAC services and solutions, and customer satisfaction is always guaranteed. Call R.F. Ohl right now to set up your appointment.
Some of the areas that we service include Easton, Martins Creek, Nazareth, Stockertown and these zip codes 18040, 18063, 18064, 18083 as well as all surrounding areas in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.
Click here to contact us today or give us a call at (610) 377-1098 if you have any questions.