As a Home Performance contractor you can imagine the grief that I get when my own house falls short of performing correctly.   I have reduced the leakage in my house by over 200%, but since it started out leaky there are still small areas that I still am working on over time in between servicing my paying clients.

I have replaced my furnace with a variable speed 96% efficient one.  I have replaced the majority of my windows will Energy Star replacement windows.  I have used spray foam insulation in the majority of my open areas to insulate and keep my family warmer.  Over all the house is great and is a least 2x’s as efficient as most houses that are the same age.  However, with all this I still did not address the smaller items such as caulking around the windows and around the doors.

The black around the window is an indication of a drop in temperature. Since we took this on a cold day, the cold air from the outside can be seen leaking into the house via the window.

I brought out our Home Performance team to take a look at one of the rooms that did not seem to be as comfortable as the rest of the them.  The IR photo showed that even though the roof line and the basement we air sealed, that the gap around the 40 year old window frame still need to be addressed.

The solution was to either just caulk around the trim to stop some of the air movement, or to insulate around the window frame.  I chose to insulate around the window frame since I had the tools to do so, but this can be a do it your self project also.

1. I broke the caulk seal with a utility knife around all of the trim and the wall.  This helps protect the Sheetrock from getting pulled off when the trim comes off.
2. Using a mini breaker bar, I carefully removed the trim off of the casing.
3. I used some minimal expanding foam designed for windows and doors to seal between the window frame and the framing on the house.
4. One the foam cured, I trimmed back any excess foam and reinstalled the trim with the original nails that I have pushed back through so they could be reset.
5. Now all I have to do it a little caulking a touch up of the trim.  Since I took extra precaution in order not to damage the walls, I will not have to paint the walls at all now.

Note: If you have high energy bills or very uncomfortable rooms, this is probably just a “drop on the bucket” compared to some more advanced performance measure such and whole house air sealing and insulation upgrades.

To see what I would do when renovating click here.

For Advanced Home Performance solutions click here.

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