In this episode of Thoughts from the Crawl Space, Jamie spotlights the importance of weatherproofing your home as winter approaches. Preparing your house for cold weather not only boosts comfort but also improves energy efficiency and helps prevent costly damage. He shares practical steps homeowners can take to protect their spaces from harsh conditions, checking insulation, sealing drafts around windows and doors, and keeping heating systems in good working order.

Listen this week for the tools you need to keep your home warm, safe, and comfortable all winter long.

Episode Highlights

• Fix drafts and improve insulation to boost winter comfort and efficiency
• Tune up heating systems for safe, reliable performance
• Manage moisture and ventilation to prevent mold and damage
• Use proactive weatherproofing to avoid costly winter repairs

Welcome to Thoughts from the Crawl Space, a podcast where our goal as home inspection experts is to support and serve our community.

Whether you're a homeowner, home buyer, real estate agent, or investor, we believe everyone deserves solutions to their homeownership challenges and inspiration along the way. Your path to success starts here. Welcome back to another episode of Thoughts from the Crawl Space. Well, summer's over.

That cold wind starting to blow a little bit and it starts sneaking through your outlets and your furnace starts begging for mercy. So let's talk about how to keep your home ready to go for winter. So you want it warm, dry, energy efficient.

And so I'll walk you through what I look for when I do a home inspection and what you can check yourself and save yourself a bunch of money and and increase the comfort in your house. So why does weatherproofing matter? So we're going to start there. Number one, why weatherproofing matters.

It's not just about comfort, it's really about efficiency and protection. So whenever you the wind starts blowing and it's going to come through any weak point in the house.

One of the weak points in your house frequently is where there are outlets in the wall. Why is that? Well, your wall has a certain distance between the outside cladding and the inside covering.

And if it's a two by four wall, you have like three and a half inches. If it's a two by six wall, you're going to have around five and a half inches of insulation potentially, except right where you have the outlets.

That outlet probably sticks at least halfway, if not three fourths of the way into that wall opening. And so the insulation right there is going to be compressed. In some cases, if it's not put in, well, you won't have any at all.

And so that's why you get cold areas around the outlets and the switch boxes. And another place you'll see them is around doors and windows. It's just not, it's breaks in the thermal envelope of the insulation.

And that's why you get some of that draftiness and inefficiency. So in the winter, inspectors see problems that could have been prevented.

Frozen pipes, ice dams, moisture intrusion, and drafts that make your H Vac work overtime. So a little prep in the fall is going to save you money and headaches in February.

So from an inspector's perspective, if you can feel the cold coming in, the heat's already going out. So don't ignore those drafts. Let's get them taken care of. So number two is going to deal with stopping Those drafts.

So what can you do first around windows and doors? Check weather stripping and door sweeps.

The door sweep is the bottom of the door and it's what kind of drags on the threshold and the door, the floor as the door opens and closes. And that just to the best it can do. It's a moving object. The best it can do. It keeps out drafts.

It sees seals that when it's shut and so forth and those wear out, they get cracked, they're missing. Especially on storm doors. You like to have your storm door, your main door open so you can see outside even in the winter.

But those storm doors can be really drafty and leaky if that door sweep is not intact or if it's broken or whatever. So make those a top priority to fix. Feel for drafts around frames or outlets near exterior walls, especially if the wind is blowing.

Go around your windows and doors and just different spots on your walls and just check for drafts. If you feel a draft, if you feel cold air coming in, remember you're getting heat loss right there. So just look for those and mark those areas.

Add caulk where old sealant is missing and that's almost always around windows. Caulk will crack, it dries out, it shrinks and it just needs touched up and improved. So storm windows and doors can add another layer of insulation.

So we talked about storm doors already. Storm windows aren't as popular as they used to be. There's also weatherproofing kits you can buy if there are windows that you won't really be using.

Not a bad, a bad idea to put some plastic over it, heat shrink it and have it secure. It keeps drafts out from the winter and it helps to create kind of a cushion there to protect your house.

Another area that you maybe hadn't thought about yet is attic access and recessed lights. Is your attic access, which is usually a hole in the ceiling, little scuttle up there. Is it insulated to the same level as the rest of the attic?

Chances are the answer is no. Most contractors, when they build a home, they're going to insulate what they need to and then they put that cover on.

Don't think about it, but that is a potentially 2 foot by 2 foot or larger. Could be a pull down ladder and that's what a couple feet by six feet opening maybe. So that's a big spot with no insulation.

So make sure that's covered to the same degree that the rest of the attic is. And then obviously heat rises.

So don't let it escape through that another thing to look for in your house is if you have one of those older houses with a built in hallway fan that basically is a whole house fan. Those are weak points in the insulation blanket as well.

So we've seen homeowners get really creative, create a box, cover it with insulation folds down over it. Because you're not going to use this fan in this in the winter anyhow.

And so that helps to just eliminate that gaping hole in the insulation blanket that's going on. So add insulation around the hatch, added around the attic fan or a pre made attic tent. There's things you can buy to put over those.

Recessed lighting can leak warm air. Look for insulation contact rated fixtures. So what that is, and almost all of them are this way now.

But you might have a house that has older ones that doesn't have insulation contact rated.

And what that means is if it's non IC rated, that means you cannot have insulation in contact with the light because it'll overheat and potentially burn. And IC rated means they are rated for direct contact.

Most of the newer ones, I'd recommend replacing the old can lights with modern LED recessed lighting which has almost no footprint into the attic. You can cover over them with anything and they're just much less likely to leak air into the attic.

So leaking air from the attic accounts for through your lights, accounts for a great deal of heat loss in the winter. It creates heat in the attic especially. You have bad insulation.

And if you don't have great ventilation, there's where you're getting condensation, you get moisture stains, you get rusted nails, potentially mold buildup, mostly because of heat loss through your attic. So you can spend a fortune on a new furnace. But if your front door's got a quarter inch gap, you're still heating the neighborhood.

So think of it that way. So you might like your neighbors, but you don't like them that much. You don't want to heat their front yard.

Number three Insulation checkup We just talked a little bit about the attic insulation. It should be fluffy, even and about R38. Now R38 with most common blown insulations is roughly 12 to 14 inches.

So you want it to be even and fluffy if it's been compressed. If you've walked up there, if contractors have compressed it down, there's really no way to uncompress it.

I guess you could go up there and rake it and fluff it up a little bit. But you could also get more insulation added to the top of it. Compressed insulation does not provide the same value as fluffy insulation.

And the reason is the fluffy is also using air as insulation. Basically, just like a gap between a storm window and a window uses that air basically as a buffer between the outside and the inside.

So basements and crawl spaces. This is one thing that's really misunderstood, and we could probably do a whole episode on this. But in short, insulate the rim joist.

The rim joist is what's at the end of the joist. It's a vertical piece, and the connection between that and the covering on the outside of that frequently leaks air.

And this is a space where spray foam has really kind of revolutionized how they insulate and treat crawl spaces and basements. Spray foaming the perimeter all the way around will really stop drafts and make for a warmer basement.

If you have a crawl space, spraying that and the entire wall will. And not even insulating between the joists is a great way to insulate a crawl space, Stop moisture entry, and create warmer floors.

Another way is garage walls and attic over living spaces often get overlooked. Check those, too. So your garage sometimes will go over. The attic will go over part of the living space.

Maybe it's not insulated quite to the same standard as the house. And that's a good way to fix that. So if your attic insulation looks like a snow drift after a raccoon party, it's time to even it out.

Now, if you've had a raccoon party up there and they've really damaged it, you're gonna run really get that fixed. Raccoons leave all kinds of things behind. They shred insulation, they shred the baffles at the eavesdrop.

They leave their waste, and they just create a general mess in your attic. So in that case, you may need to pull all that out of there and start over. Next up next, number four, moisture and condensation control.

So clean your gutters and downspouts. We've mentioned that before. Ice dams generally start with clogged gutters because water runs off, gets in the gutter, can't get away water.

More water tries to run off. It can't. It can back up under your shingles and into your house. Extend your downspouts at least five feet from the foundation.

You want to get any water that it does take away from the house and the foundation. Check the grading around your house. You want to make sure there's no low spots.

Over the course of a year, things settle, Especially if you're in newer construction, Especially the area right around the house. Those are prone to settle in the first five to seven years after new construction.

So get those sloping away so you don't have water set right next to your basement wall. Make sure that the bath and kitchen vents exhaust outdoors and not into the attic.

Probably the one of the most common things we see is bathroom and kitchen exhaust vents going into the attic. And this just adds moisture and you're just begging for a problem if it's doing that.

A tip in basements, and this isn't quite as big of a problem in the winter as it is in the summer, but use a dehumidifier. Even in the winter, you can still have elevated moisture levels down there humidity wise.

So you want to use a dehumidifier to lower that and make it more comfortable to live down there and not give mold and things like that a chance to get started. Number five, a heating system. Tune up. Have your furnace or boiler serviced before the cold hits.

Now, we're at the time now where some, some people have already turned them on and you might be too late for that, but you can always have someone come tune it up even after you started it. So call an H Vac company, have them come tune it up. Make sure it's working safely before use.

Change your filters monthly during heavy use or 90 days at the very most.

If you have one of the more, the thicker filters that are more four or five inches, you can sometimes go about six months with those as long as you don't have excessive pet hair in the house or dirt or whatever. If you're in a real dusty area on a dirt road, you may need to change them more often.

So inspect the flues and vents for corrosion or loose fittings and then test CO and smoke detectors. Replace batteries. How many times you've replaced the battery in your carbon monoxide or smoke detector?

My guess would be it's only when it starts being beeping and annoying you. So be proactive. Change the batteries. It's worth the cost for your peace of mind. Change your smoke detectors.

If they've been there a while, the National Fire Protection Agency recommends that you change them every seven to 10 years. So especially if you look at them and they're yellow, they, you know, you were white, now they're yellow. They've just weathered their need. Changed.

Number six, plumbing protection. Insulate exposed pipes in unheated areas, and you're most likely going to see these in crawl spaces and garages.

Now, you may have one on an outside wall and in that case you may not know about it. It might be hidden, but definitely in crawl spaces, especially near vents.

And cold air can tell if it's 20 degrees below zero and we got a wind chill even lower, cold air coming in is going to freeze those pipes and you're going to have a big mess down there.

So garages, especially on a slab home, a lot of your H vac equipment, water heater, water meter, and many of your plumbing lines are exposed in the garage. Many times they're unheated and you can get away with that as long as you have ambient heat coming off the furnace.

But it's, it's a great idea to insulate those. You don't want to leave your overhead door open very long, but just take precautions. Insulate pipes that need it.

So disconnect garden hoses and shut off exterior faucets. Well, obviously you're going to shut your faucet off because water is not going to keep running.

They're talking more about inside shut offs that may apply to these faucets, but garden hoses take them off.

If it freezes with the garden hose on, you got a really good shot that, that even those frost free furniture faucets have not drained because the hose is on them. And then you will get a split in the interior part that you won't know about until next spring when you hook up a hose to water your flowers.

And then it's going to spray all over the basement. So disconnect those hoses. Know where your main shut off main water shutoff valve is. I recommend on every inspection to clients.

If you are going to go away for an extended period of time, shut off the water before you leave. If you have a pipe come loose, something goes crazy, the heat shuts off, you're out of power, whatever.

At least you won't have catastrophic water damage if that water shutoff valve is off. If you have a well, flip the switch off, flip the breaker off, turn the shut off and you can prevent the same problem.

So if you're leaving town, keep the thermostat at least 55 degrees. Don't just shut it off. 55 degrees generally. With a well circulated house, should be able enough to keep pipes warm in about any time temperature.

So frozen pipes, they don't care how tough you are, they'll burst anyhow. Okay, small things that make a big difference. Number seven, reverse your ceiling fans. I bet you've never done this clockwise. Pushes warm air down.

So we know in the winter and in the summer warm air rises. Well in the winter. We want that to come on down. It helps even out the air circulation in the house and it also helps your furnace more efficient.

Be more efficient because the hot air isn't all at the top and the thermostat is still reading that we need more heat. So turn it so it goes in a clockwise manner. So go under your fan and look up, turn it on.

And if it's going in a counterclockwise manner, you need there's a little switch on the side of it you can, you can move. That'll turn it in the other direction. Check door thresholds. Adjust small gaps. Seal electrical outlets on the exterior walls with foam gaskets.

They make special foam gaskets you can put inside or outside to help with that area infiltration we talked about around those openings. Add window film kits for older single pane windows. If there's no other option, put some plastic on it and seal it.

And then inspect your roof for missing shingles or loose flashing before the snow hits. The last thing you want is a significant leak coming in bound by your chimney or your plumbing vent or a valley or whatever.

And now you got six inches of snow on the roof and now nobody can even work on it because they can't get on the roof. So get that done now before the snow flies, before it's there.

You know, we're due for a winter probably where we could get snow and it just stays and. And then it's hard for anybody to get any work done. So. Some closing thoughts. Winter doesn't have to mean high bills. Doesn't really doesn't have to.

Or cold toes. A little time spent weatherproofing now means you can actually enjoy that cozy indoor season without your house working against you.

Remember, your comfort and safety starts with a solid sealed home. Have any questions on it? Feel free to call us. We'd love to help you out. Thanks for watching and listening. Until next time, have a good one.

Thank you for listening. This week you can catch up on the latest episode of the Thoughts from the Crawl Space podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

For more information about Gold Key Inspection services, go to goldkeyinspect.com.