Cold Weather Remedies for Heat Loss in this Old House, House Leaks, Heat Leaks

All of these icicles are caused by hot air loss from the house

The Polar Vortex has us frosted. We feel as if we watch dollar bills flying out the cracks, windows and doors of Shore Side Farm House.  The river side of the house, which faces north, is the coldest.  You can stand in that corner of the house and feel the temperature difference. Mr. manages to turn a blind eye to the cold. I on the other hand feel crippled by the "cold to the core pain" of living in these circumstances. Something has to be done about this....or ship me to a warmer part of the world for this part of the year!

wall crack needs plaster patching, but bottom
moldings need caulk and possible replacement repaif

 A high tech gadget... a man toy, one that reads the

hand held temperature gauge
cost about $30 

temperatures of different surfaces, is the trick that finally convinced Mr. that this project had to commence.He wantonly toured the house with a little tool like the one at the right and started to come to my side of the argument. His gadget was validating all my observations about heat loss and  house leaks. He has agreed to do some caulking based on the findings of that silly little tool....I guess is wasn't so silly. It caused him to act...finally! Cold is a good motivator. There is something quite painful in seeing your mephorical dollar bills flying out the holes in the wall without warming you as intended.  The good news is that just caulking can make a significant difference.

He started the caulking project at that cold river side of the house.  The temperature of that corner of the house drops ten degrees from the rest of the room. The edges of the floor moldings were the first to be attacked. Mr went along the perimeter of the moldings, the steps on the staircase and even some of the gaps in the original wood flooring,  with a caulking gun. As he slowly progressed he filled in

some of the voids between the wall and the moldings. This stopped many drafts. As in any old house, drafts are a big challenge to trying to keep a constant temperature in the room. Surprisingly the sides of the stair treads also had some huge gaps that needed to be filled. We had previously put a

plastic polystyrene rope caulk, pushes into gaps

plastic rope caulk being installed in floor gap

narrow polystyrene foam hose shaped caulk in there and that had helped some.  The caulk from the gun made a much improved seal and it raised the room temperature significantly. We also discovered a huge gap under the moldings of interior windows. I never really expected that location to be a big problem. It was a huge problem and the caulk helped to stop that air leak and draft.


It is a slow, steady process, each caulking that you do can decrease drafts in the house, raise the temperature and improve your comfort. Give it a try, it may be a rewarding to you as it has been for us. My next few postings will deal with more "house sealing" measures. I think next will be a posting on use of Tyvek to fight wind penetration.