Weatherizing Your Home Facts

• Weatherizing your home involves making sure that all gaps in your home's building envelope are plugged and that your home has a sufficient amount of insulation in all parts of the envelope.

• Unless your home was constructed with special attention to energy efficiency, adding insulation will probably reduce your utility bills.

• Much of the existing housing stock in the United States is not insulated to the best level.

• The air leakage in a typical U.S. home is equal to leaving a window wide open.

• Inadequate insulation and air leakage are leading causes of energy waste in most homes.

• It is possible to add insulation to almost any house.

• Heat flows from warmer to cool spaces, moving directly from all heated living spaces to adjacent unheated attics, garages, and basements, or to the outdoors. During the cooling season, heat flows from outdoors to the house interior.

• Insulation is rated in terms of thermal resistance, called R-value, which indicates the resistance to heat flow. The higher the R-value, the greater the insulating effectiveness.

What you can do to save energy in your home.

• Insulate your attic to the recommended level, including the attic door, or hatch cover.

• Provide the recommended level of insulation under floors above unheated spaces, around walls in a heated basement or unventilated crawl space, and on the edges of slabs-on-grade.

• Use the recommended levels of insulation for exterior walls for new house construction. When remodeling or re-siding your house, consider using the levels recommended for new construction in your existing walls.

• Caulk and weather-strip doors and windows

• Close chimney flue and seal unused fireplaces

• Seal exterior wall around pipes and wires

• Use plastic sheeting on the interiors to make a temporary double-pane window

• When replacing windows, consider a double pane windows with a frame in vinyl or wood clad in vinyl or aluminum.

• Insulate openings for whole-house fans