Global Warming or House Warming? | Wasilla Real Estate News, Valley Market Real Estate

Global Warming or House Warming? January 4th, 2007

Categories: For Buyers, For Sellers, New Construction, Wasilla Real Estate News

It’s 17 degrees below zero at my house right now, and I’m in Palmer, the banana belt of Alaska. I just checked weather underground and the forecast for Fairbanks is a low of -40 tomorrow. This is coming off about 2 weeks of snow every day. I think Anchorage currently is ahead of their record snowfall. At least the sky is clear and the mountains are pretty

At this temperature you don’t need an infrared camera to tell where your house is losing heat. Just go outside and take a good look. Do you see collections of frost in different areas? Those are causes by either air leakage from inside your house, or by warmth leaking out of the house because of insufficient insulation. Either way you are contributing to global warming by warming the outside rather than the inside of your home.

Take a good look at those frosty spots. If they are just under an eave of a cathedral ceiling, or just around the outside of a door or window that means air is leaking at those spots. You need to seal those areas with insulation, foam, or caulk. If you use foam around a door or a window make sure it’s not expandable foam or it could cause the frame to deform. All that warmth going to the outside can be quantified in dollars spent on your heating bills. Air leakage can also cause moisture to collect inside your walls since it usually starts condensing before actually hitting the cold outside air.

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Written by Marty Van Diest Please leave a comment.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 4th, 2007 at 7:33 pm and is filed under For Buyers, For Sellers, New Construction, Wasilla Real Estate News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.