You might start to notice that some rooms of your home are colder than others. You do your best to keep your home at a consistent temperature, but, now and then, you feel a draft.
While a draft probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal in the summer as it would in the winter…either way, you’re going to be losing the air you’ve paid to heat or cool to the exterior of your home.
The solution? Finding and sealing those drafts. Here are a few tips to make finding drafts in your home easier:
1. Learn the common locations of drafts.
In most homes, whether newly built or hundreds of years old, there are a few places that are the most likely to develop a draft. These are the knee walls, the attic openings, holes for wiring, vents for your plumbing system, lights that are recessed into the wall or flues or ducts for your furnace.
Knowing where you are likely to develop a draft will make it much easier to find where that draft is coming from when you start to feel one. The biggest cause of drafts? Windows—if your windows aren’t sealed properly, they are going to leak.
2. Check the most obvious areas first.
Start by shutting all of your windows, doors, and flues, and then walking around your house. You might want to light a stick of incense or something else with a slow, consistent burn, that you can hold near potential sources of drafts.
If they blow or suck the smoke, there is probably a leak occurring in that area. Start by checking the areas of your home that are most likely to develop a draft. It is likely that one of these places has started to leak. If not, you’ll have to have a more in-depth examination.
3. Start looking at the less obvious culprits.
If you’ve tested every area that you think might be the cause of the draft, start moving on the less obvious places. Check the seals around your doors and windows, and then on to the vents in your home. If you have a duct that is leaking somewhere, it might not just be leaking heated air out—it might also be letting cold air into your home. Make sure your A/C or furnace is switched off and then take a look at all of your vents. Are any of them sucking in or pushing out air, even though your system is entirely off?
4. Shine a flashlight around potential leaks.
Have someone else go outside your home as you shin a flashlight on areas that might potentially be leaking. This is a great way to see if you have gaps in your seals anywhere that you can visually see. If you shut a door or a window, but light is still leaking out around the edges, that means that air is leaking out around the edges, too.
5. Get a professional inspection.
If you have done your own inspections and tests and still can’t identify the source of your draft, it’s time to enlist a professional. Hire a company that is very familiar not just with the seals around doors and windows, but with your ductwork, too. This is the company that will be able to not just find, but also seal off the leak, no matter where it is. For more information, contact our experienced Sarasota HVAC team, today!
