Ask Jon Eakes

Last Updated: Friday, October 15th, 1999, Created: Friday, October 15th, 1999

WEATHER-STRIPPING

Weather-stripping is used to seal air leaks at any opening in the house that moves -- doors, windows, and traps. If you need to be convinced of the necessity of doing a good job of weather-stripping, check out Air Barriers in the search -- or look at your last heating bill.

There are a variety of weather-stripping products available at hardware stores, and half of it is rather useless. If a weather-stripping material won't last more than a year it's probably working poorly for most of the winter anyway, and you're wasting your time and money. I don't discuss every kind of weather-stripping and every application, but rather give some guidelines to help you make choices at the store.

One of the discouraging things for me was to discover that the choice you have at the store is dependent upon the climate you live in. The same companies make different qualities of weather-stripping. They stock the good stuff in the colder cities and the cheap stuff in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Actually I am sure they would rather sell the better stuff and make more money, but apparently homeowners in milder climates just don't take weather-stripping seriously. So it becomes a vicious circle: you don't buy it, you can't get it; you can't get it, you don't know it exists; you don't use it, you don't know what you are missing. So if you are going to be traveling through a colder part of the country, stock up on weather-stripping.

Keywords: Drafts, Heat Loss, Weatherstripping

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