Tägliche Haupterneuerung-Spitzen

As we continue to prepare our home for the coming winter with a mind to reduce our heating costs and save money, we were very, very surprised how many opportunities for air leakage reduction we found.

We hope that our experiences will encourage you to look around the outside of your own home and seal them before it gets any colder. Finding and sealing air leaks on the outside of your home with some good caulking will save you money by reduced heating expenses in the winter as well as reduced air conditioning costs in the summer.

It is not hard; it just takes concentration. So, here are our air leakage sealing experiences on the outside of our home which you can add to your own collection of home maintenance tips and energy conservation tips.

First we look at the east side of our home where there is a water faucet, our central air conditioner and the natural gas meter within 5 feet of each other.

Did we find any air leaks? You bet.

The water pipe leading from the house to the outdoor faucet had some very old caulking which has shrunk with time creating air leaks into our home per the above picture.

If you can remove the caulking by simply flicking it away with your finger, it is not doing the job any more and needs to be replaced. And, that is all I did to remove it.

Above it a picture of the same water pipe leaning into the house but now with the old shrunken caulking having been removed.

To seal the air leak I used DAP indoor / outdoor caulking.

Now, I am not an artist by any means. So, the caulking job was a little messy, but that’s OK. As long as the air leak is covered with sufficient caulking that is all that matters as far as I am concerned.

As shown in the above picture, I shouldn’t have to worry about air leaks in the winter or summer from this water pipe.

Now, water pipes entering the home is just one of many different areas for possible air leaks. Tomorrow, we turn our attention to the west side of our home and see what we can find.

To continue to the next article in this series, simply select this link to Part 2 where we find more air leaks on the west side of our house.