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Caulking is a very important part of preparing the house for winter, so make sure you do a good job of scraping away any of the old stuff before applying new. |
We were told September is an ideal time to do caulking and other exterior winterizing jobs around the house. Why September?
By this time of year the sun's rays have lost enough strength to permit you to spend a lot more time working in areas where it would become too hot during the heat of summer.
This also means that the caulking compounds you'll be using will get a chance to cure properly without the sun baking their surfaces. It avoids the bead deteriorating when things get much colder just a few weeks later.
Caulking is a very important part of preparing the house for winter, so make sure you do a good job of scraping away any of the old stuff before applying new.
An extra hint about caulking: Treat it like a rope, which means it has to be pulled along when applying rather than pushing it.
For the past few years we've been taping sheets of clear plastic to the windows in hopes of saving on heating bills. It has not worked very well because it seems to still be drafty in that area and the glass is quite prone to fogging up. Are we doing something wrong?
Most people don't realize that much of the air infiltration/leaking in window areas takes place where the wood trim meets the wall.
Taping sheets of plastic to the trim may help save having to repaint the trim when you take it off, but you have not done a whole lot for conserving energy if there's still an air gap between the wall and trim.
My suggestion, if you're going to use the plastic sheeting, is to tape it to the wall in a way that it encloses the window trim, which can stop up to 40 per cent of the air movement.
When it comes to having to remove the tape in the spring, a hair dryer will go a long way toward breaking down the adhesive without damaging the paint on the wall. This system will also ensure a bit of air exchange between the glass and plastic sheet so fogging is no longer a problem, either.
We have a beautiful big window in the living room but it, and the patio door in the dining room, keep fogging up in winter. We've even installed heavier drapes over both and feel we may have wasted our money because things have not changed.
I suggest something much less expensive and more effective than new drapes. In front of the window, and probably near the patio door, you have a heating grill in the floor and it blows warm air straight up past both window and door glass. Unlike the rest of the wall, the glass is not insulated.
Once you reach a 10-degree temperature difference from one side of the glass to the other, you're dealing with a dew point. This is when condensation forms and you have to almost live in the room to keep up with wiping the moisture off both.
Rather than permitting the warm air to blow upward, an air deflector (at a cost of less than $5) will direct warm air flow across the floor and be just as effective in heating the room without blowing away your comfort. Recently, we found an antique parlour stove at a yard sale and we want to install it as a functioning heating unit in our three-season cottage. It's in very good condition but we don't know what to do about a chimney for it.
The industry recently concentrated on very closely engineering chimneys for these and other fossil-fuel burning appliances and you should be able to take advantage of that. Most fireplace sales centres will be able to tell you the size of flue liner you'll need and the various fire hazard protection measures you'll have to employ with each (distance to combustibles, number of interior elbows, etc.).
About the only other tip I can give you is to ensure that the top of the chimney rises at least 75 centimetres higher than anything within three metres of it. This will give it a good draw and will certainly help keep it from smoking up the cottage - a step toward more comfort.
Ren Molnar is a home consultant and handyman. Send your questions to him at ren@on.aibn.com.
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