House Drafts, Caulk to Fight the Cold and the Wind

Frozen river outside the front door adds to the chill at this old farm house

Lots of cold here this winter. 6 degrees is not cold in other parts of the country, but here that is damn cold. Delmarva is just not that cold in the winter, but this winter is an aberration. We too have been swept up in the Polar Vortex events and the cold has been pretty unrelenting. Cold, wind and Shore Side Farm House are not a magic mix. This old house is leaky and drafty. I guess that is not news to anybody, but it is damn difficult to live with. Forty-nine degrees inside the house with the heat on is cold cold cold! The bedroom facing the water was 52 degrees the other night, the toilet waste line froze, causing the toilet to refuse to flush...very frustrating.  Some may choose to live at these temps but these old bones are creaking at those temps, and it is quite unpleasant to live here under those circumstances.  These levels of cold, or should I say depths of cold, have motivated Mr. to take some actions.

Icicles hanging from roof after the snow storm and cold vortex

length of plastic rope caulk

If these icicles don't tell you that you have a big heat leakage  problem...nothing is going to convince you that there is a problem! Deal with it, don't ignore it!...so it came to be...action on the problem! The first action taken was to do some caulking. This old house has lots of voids around the moldings, the floor boards, the doors, windows...lets say everywhere. Some of these cracks and voids have no air leaks, others have huge air leaks. Needless to say the most leaky will get the greatest amount of attention to begin with. We might as well try to get the biggest bang for our efforts and attack the big leaks first. We went

plastic rope caulk in void between floor boards,
installing on left, appearance when done on the right

around the house with a flashlight, a smoky rolled up stump of paper to watch the smoke movement when near an opening, a handheld temperature reading gadget, and our fingers for simply feeling around all the windows, floor edges, and doors. This was the first step of our investigation and it detected many many leaks. Much of this is what was filled with caulk from a caulk gun. Previously we had done this and installed a polystyrene rope type caulk which had provided some stoppage of the leaks, but proved to be outclassed by the extreme cold. Something stronger was required which is why we transitioned to tube caulk.

The river side of the house is most vulnerable to wind penetration. That is predictable, but very challenging. In this house that wind penetration is our biggest challenge. You can just feel the cold coming through the north wall in some places. Along the floors and staircase were particularly leaky and caulking them made a very big difference in drafts inside the house, and in room temperature. We progressed to the inside of the

inside the under stair closet

under stair closet that had giant cracks and gaps causing leaks from the cold crawlspace and balloon wall cavity. Caulk was applied in there, quite a bit of caulk!  When Mr went inside the closet with a flashlight to search for leaks, I could see his flashlight through crevices between the wall boards, demonstrating just how much cold air penetration there was between the uninsulated closet and the heated room...no wonder we were freezing!




Another pervasive problem was the leaks around the beautiful original front door. In anticipation of this air

painters tape

painters tape to cut draft around door

leakage the door was removed allowing the entry to be tightened up and rebuilt, the threshold was replaced with one that had rubber pressure seals, the locks were replaced to hold firm against the wind and seal the door more tightly in its seat. This helped somewhat, but it did not completely seal the door against the north wind. We tried a chinking technique on the door with fabric or pieces of cardboard stuck in around the perimeter of the door to stop drafts. We changed our habits to entering the house from another, but that proved awkward for traffic. Mr actually came up with a very effective tool against the wind creeping in around the door. He installed blue painters tape, the blue tape for masking off painted areas. He put that around the whole door. It keeps out the air leakage and was easy and cheap to take off and reapply when needed. Stopping those drafts made a huge difference in being able to maintain room temperature. Mind you, all of this was done AFTER receiving a huge oil bill. Pain in the pocket is a really good motivator.

Tube caulk in gun, and close up of tip on the right....just the thing to fill gaps around
windows, doors, mouldings that leak air and heat