A perfectly comfortable home is a home where you never think about being cold or hot. For many home owners, they find themselves hot in one room and cold in another. And when this occurs it often causes a battle of the thermostat and a constant adjusting and re-adjusting in a never ending cycle trying to achieve comfort. Diagnosing comfort problems is complicated and often it takes an expert but here are the fundamentals.

• Drafts – If you have a room that is cold in the winter and hot in the summer look for air leaks in the room. When the wind blows, can you feel air coming in around doors, windows, plug plates, or plumbing penetrations? If so, that could be a key factor in the cold air that you may feel moving across your feet.

• Windows – Windows are a major factor in a room’s comfort. Even the most efficient windows are still not as insulative as your walls. Windows also allow sun rays into the house. This can heat up a room significantly in the summer making it too hot. If your windows face the east or west you can use shades or window films to block the sun’s heat.

• Humidity – Have you ever noticed that 100 degrees in a hot humid climate feels a lot different than 100 degrees in a hot dry climate? High humidity makes your home feel clammy. Even though the temperature of your house may be right, high humidity will keep you from feeling comfortable. Humidity can be caused by improper venting, crawlspace moisture, or a poorly functioning HV/AC system. Since up to 50% of the air that enters your house comes from the crawlspace, managing the moisture in there is very important.

• Balance – When an HV/AC system is installed it is supposed to be designed to supply the right amount of conditioned air to each room. If the HV/AC installer makes an error, or the room is not performing as designed, it can cause there to be either too much or too little conditioned air flowing to a room. If it is too little, it will be cold in the winter and hot in the summer. If it is too much, it will be hot in the winter and cold in the summer. If you think you have this problem you can use the baffles on your duct system to try and adjust the flow to a room. The best option is having your system balanced by a professional who can calculate how much air should be flowing to each room and match the air flow from your system to that calculation.

Your home’s comfort is very important because it can cause your home to be a pleasant or unpleasant place to live. Improving your home’s comfort can also help avoid family feuds over what temperature to set the thermostat at.

Tags: Cold Room, Hot rooms, How to fix cold rooms, How to fix hot rooms, HVAC Balancing
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Do you feel drafts coming from your exterior doors or, even worse, see daylight through the cracks? Well, if you do, you probably know that you need to do something about it. Air leaks around doors are easy to identify, but harder to fix. Doors are frequently opened and slammed, they often warp because of weather, and many times, sit crooked in the door opening because the house has settled or shifted. Solving this problem can be somewhat of a challenge.

Assessing your doors:
If you think your doors are leaking, you need to inspect them to find out. First, go to each of your exterior doors and look to see if the weather-stripping is in contact with the door frame. You can use a business card and try to slide it between the weather-stripping and the frame and if you feel resistance from the pressure of the weather-stripping contacting the frame, then you know you have a good seal. If the card slides freely or if you can see light through the crack in the door, then your weather-stripping needs to be replaced.

Finding the Right Solution:
If you peruse the weather-stripping options at your local hardware store you will find a variety of styles. To select the right product you need to observe the features on the door you are addressing. A door that is less than 10 years old should have a groove in the door frame in which weather-stripping can be inserted. If your door has this groove you can purchase weather-stripping that slides into this groove. For doors that don’t have this groove, the best option is weather-stripping that is mechanically fastened to your door frame with screws or nails. This type of weather-stripping should be screwed to your door frame so that it firmly contacts the door when it is shut. The third option, which is not as durable, is adhesive weather-stripping. If you choose to use adhesive, foam, weather-stripping, you will need to measure the average width of the crack between your door and the frame and select weather-stripping with the appropriate thickness.

Door Sweeps:
Air creeping under your doors can be stopped by improving your door sweep. To replace them, you will have to get out a screwdriver and back out the screws on your existing door sweep. If it is worn and needs to be replaced you can use it as a guide to buy a replacement one that matches the size of your door. You will have to adjust the door sweep until it makes contact with your threshold, creating a snug seal.

Attic Access Doors:
Often attic access doors are not well sealed. Attic doors that close over carpet instead of a proper threshold are certainly leaking air. Also, if your attic door only has a magnet holding it closed, it likely doesn’t have enough pressure to create a good seal. You can fix this problem by installing a door handle or latch that allows you to close the door and latch it, creating a tight air seal.

Properly sealed doors lower the amount of conditioned air that escapes from your home, improves your home’s comfort, and saves you energy year round.

Tags: door sweeps, drafts, Weather Stripping
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