Reduce Cooling Costs by Sealing Your Home

After an unusually brutal winter, temperatures are starting to warm up. Many people complained about the cold for months, but they are finally starting to bring out the air conditioners as it heats up. While air conditioning can be a great way to make the summer more bearable, it’s also important to consider other options to reduce cooling costs. The first thing to try may be sealing your house.

Why Does Sealing Your House Reduce Cooling Costs?

Most people believe that sealing their homes is only important for saving on heating. However, the Department of Energy reports that it can be great for reducing cooling costs as well.

Why is this true? It all boils down to the way that heat transfer works. Heat always travels from a higher temperature source to a lower temperature source. If the temperature outside is higher, then it will try to make its way into your house. Adding layers to your walls and filling gaps will reduce the rate of heat transfer, which will benefit you in both the summer and winter months.

Getting Started

If you feel overly war during the summer, then you may need to start by doing an audit of the house. You may find that there are a number of cracks or gaps, which can be a cause for concern. Here are some steps to take.

The best place to start is caulking your windows. Windows are one of the biggest sources of heat transfer, but fortunately only cost a couple of dollars per foot if you hire a contractor. Caulking is also very easy, so it can be done on your own for almost nothing.

Inspect every possible port of entry for air into your home. These include the doors, window frames, baseboards, electrical service entrances and switchboards. You need to seal every hole or crack that you identify to make sure that warm air can’t make its way into your house.  

Identifying smaller leaks can be tricky. You may want to do a pressured testing to find them. Here are the steps that you need to take:

• Shut off all heat generating devices
• Close all ports of entry (doors and windows) to your home
• Turn on a high powered fan or other tool to blast air into your home
• Light some incense along the edges of your home to see where it blows

This will help you find out if there are any holes or other inlets that need to be patched. You may need to use sheetrock and insulation to fill them in.

Find Cost-effective Ways to Keep Yourself Cool

The summer is expected to get a lot warmer, so you’ll need to take all possible measures to keep your family cool. Sealing up your house can be one of the best cost-saving measures that you take. You should look into updating your cooling system with Kay Heating and Cooling if it isn’t running efficiently.