Weatherizing your home is easy if you understand how cooling loads work. Every home has a unique cooling load or the amount of cooled air your home requires to stay comfortable inside. What is not unique to a home, however, is how cooling is lost. Most homes lose valuable cooled air in many of the same ways, and these five tips will help you succeed in weatherizing your home against summer’s heat.
- Stop heat from gaining access to your home. If your home has air leaks, it’s likely that you’re losing a portion of your cooled air, as outside heat can get inside your home via these leaks. To keep heat out, using caulk or weather stripping to seal leaks around attic hatches, walls, basement windows, ducts, and window and door frames in the home’s exterior, as well as electrical and plumbing protrusions.
- Keep heat from the sun out. Heat gain through windows is another way that homeowners can lose energy. Consider installing sunscreens or reflective films or using window treatments to block the sun’s rays from raising the temperature inside your home.
- Prevent heat transfer. As the sun heats up the outside of your home, its insulation is designed to stop thermal transfer through the home’s building materials, which would then heat up the inside of your home. If you haven’t upgraded home insulation in awhile, consider having it professionally inspected.
- Minimize heat gain from heat-generating equipment inside your home. The equipment you use inside your home can also generate heat, and thereby raise your home’s temperature, causing your A/C to work overtime to compensate for those losses. By keeping lights off and making sure certain equipment like your dryer is vented outside, you can minimize heat gain.
- Restrict heat-generating activities. The activities that you and your family do inside the home can also generate heat, such as using your stove or oven. Try to schedule heat-generating activities during cooler hours of the day.