Doing a Home Energy Audit Yourself – Part 3 What to do about Air Leaks and Insulation

We have already talked about a home energy audit as a way of testing your home to assess how much energy your home uses. In doing so we discovered how efficient it is in its energy usage. We have found some problems in your home’s efficiency (don’t worry they all have some). Now we need to learn how to fix those problems correctly so you can save money on your energy bills. During your energy audit evaluation, you should have been able to pinpoint problem area where your home is loosing energy, which is generally in the form of air and heat loss from the house.

The following is to help you do correct those problems correctly.

DIY Home Energy Audit 1. Finding Air Leaks Indoors
• Air leaks along the baseboards or edge of the flooring and window and door frames can be corrected with some caulking. Use latex or acrylic caulk so that it can be painted to match your trim color. You can buy clear acrylic for trims that is stained.
• Air leaks around electrical outlets, switch plates, can be fixed with a special gasket that goes behind the cover plate.
• The best way to fix a fireplace is to install glass doors on your fireplace. The damper itself will never seal tight enough.
• Apply weather striping around your attic hatch. A simple foam self adhesive weather strip works.
• Remove window mounted air conditioners from the window for the heating season.
• Fill gaps around pipes and wires going through your exterior walls with caulking or foam insulation.
• Get rid of that mail slot, it is just a money waster.

DIY Home Energy Audit 2. Finding Air Leaks Outdoors
• Make sure the caulking is good everywhere two different building materials have been used. Like where the siding and a chimney meets, and where the foundation and the bottom of exterior brick or siding meet. Do not fill where the mortar has been left out between brick on the bottom course as these are weep holes.
• Make sure you caulk all cracks and holes in the mortar, foundation, and siding and around the doors and windows.

3. Wall Insulation
• If your walls are not insulated or have little insulation the easiest way to fix this problem is to rent a machine and blow insulation into the walls. Though this job is most often done by a professional (and I would recommend you get one to do it) you can do it yourself.

DIY Home Energy Audit 4. Attic Insulation
• If your attic insulation is not up to standard (12″ – 14″ deep) it is fairly easy to add some bat insulation on top of what you have. Though this is not a pleasant job and you have to make sure you do not put your foot through the ceiling or block off the air flow from your soffit area it can be done yourself. It is also an easy job for a contractor to blow in loose insulation.
• Don’t forget to insulate and weather-strip your attic access door.

DIY Home Energy Audit 5. Basement and Crawl Space Insulation
• Insulating the exterior walls of your basement or crawl space (4 – 6”) may not seem as important as heat rises, right. But it is a major cause of heat loss.
• For basements the best way is to frame a wall on your exterior walls and install bat insulation and vapor barrier.
• For crawl space walls where you have a dirt floor you need to first cover the complete floor with a 6 mill poly vapor barrier.
• Then you can lay bats against the exterior wall making sure they come out onto the floor a foot and are on top of the floor poly. Make sure you fasten the insulation at the top to keep the bats in place then cover them with a vapor barrier.
• In both cases don’t forget to insulate your rim joist (the joist above your exterior foundation wall) with the same amount of insulation and vapor barrier.
• Don’t forget to insulate and weather-strip your crawl space access door if you have one.