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During the
energy audit that we had done on the house last month they ran a
blower door test to evaluate the air leakage of the building envelope.
The total leakage came to about 120 square inches which is pretty good.
So while the big fan was sucking air out of the building we walked all
round the building looking for cold spots with our hands and a thermal
camera. What we found was cold drafts coming from behind the door
and window trim. The images below show the thermal camera image of
the dark blue (cold) air that is blowing in around the front door trim.
We marked each cold spot with a post-it note so I could deal with them
later. |
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I removed the door trim to find that the builders had neglected to
insulate the space between the framing and the door frame itself.
This gap ranged from less than 1/4" to over an inch in some windows.
The solution was to squirt
Great Stuff foam into the gap, totally
sealing and insulating the space to prevent air infiltration. |
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I also found several windows with huge un-insulated gaps, one that
required almost a full can of Great Stuff foam to fill. Other
windows were packed with fiberglass which is the typical way
to insulate the framing space, but I prefer the total seal that foam
provides. I'm sure that I have removed many
square inches of air leakage at this point. |
