Page 2- Results from inspecting your doors
Now that you have made the initial inspection of your home, we will examine the potential fixes for each of the conditions you observed, and the potential energy savings you can enjoy by performing them. Our first list of basic home repairs are free as long as you have a little time and some basic hand tools.
In our first step, we checked exterior doors for air leaks. In your observations you may or may not have found weather stripping around the door trim where the door meets the frame. If you found weather stripping was it continual all the way around the frame or only partially covered? Were there pieces of this weather stripping missing?
Read below to assess your home efficiency inspection on your doors.
Your options for free fixes if you noted any drafty areas around the edges of your doors may be limited. You’ll have to determine the cause. If there are missing parts of weather stripping or none at all in the areas where air is getting in, you’ll need to close those gaps in some way. Where there is no weather strip, you will need to purchase some. If your weather strip is partial, has pieces missing, is folded, crushed over time or dry and brittle, you may be able to make some adjustments to help. Try moving everything back into its place by unfolding flattened pieces or by patching in pieces taken from another area of the door where the weather strip is doubled up. If your door has metal strips that spring and compress when the door is opened and closed and is crushed or has parts missing in an area, you may use a strip of duct tape or electrical tape to connect the good pieces together and fill the gap at least partially. If you have no sweep at the bottom of your door and there is a significant draft, you should purchase one that fits your door. It only takes a few minutes to install a door sweep and it will stop nearly all of the drafts at the bottom of the door.
If the door has weather strip all the way around it and still leaks air, your door more than likely has some “play” in it when it is closed and latched. Even if not so, pick up your candle again and see if you can cause air to leak along the tall length of the door when you pull or push against the door while it is closed and latched. If you’re getting more draft or less draft by pulling or pushing against the door, you should adjust your door strike.
The strike is the metal plate in the door frame that the latch from the doorknob locks into when the door is closed. If your door has play in it when it is closed, you should move your strike outward toward the outside of your home (if your door swings inward as it should). You will have to loosen and/or remove the two screws that hold it in place first. If your strike has slots that the screws go through, you may be able to loosen the screws and slide the strike a small distance outward to the house and re-tighten them. If you have single screw holes you will have to remove the screws completely and may have to partially fill the old screw holes before moving the plate back and re-installing the screws. You can quickly re-fill the old holes by driving small shards of wood into the old holes. Toothpicks also can work. Drive them into the holes with a hammer, break off the part that sticks out and drive another piece in. Repeat this process until you can no longer fit another piece in the hole.
It is also likely in this case that you will need to notch out the door frame to allow the strike to lie inside the wood frame flush. Mark a straight line on the frame at the edge of the desired position of the strike. You may use a chisel, a flat screw driver or even a utility knife to remove the excess wood beneath where the strike will sit. Always be careful not to remove too much wood or crack the door frame. Sharp tools are best for preventing this problem. Re-install the door strike and test the door, which should fit tightly against the door frame and weather stripping. You’ll seldom get perfect results on your first try, and may need to re-adjust the strike a couple of times to get the right fit.
Your exterior doors in most climates could be adjusted twice per year to maintain the optimal fit in the spring to prepare for warmer weather and in the fall to prepare for cooler weather. Your doors to some extent will expand and contract in varying weather conditions and will as a result fit tighter or more loosely depending on the time of year. This condition is the reason for loose or tight fitting doors comparing one season to another.
The Numbers: The average home costs approximately $400 per year to re-heat and/or re-cool due to energy loss from air leaks. Older homes lose approximately $750 and newer, well-built homes rest at the lower end at around $270 per year. A new home isn’t necessarily an air tight home. There is an average of one exterior entry door for every six sets of windows in each house. Since about 85% of heat and cooling loss is from windows and doors, your doors and windows will account for an average annual energy lost cost of about $340.00. The energy loss cost if you have leaking doors is then speculated to be in the range between $60 and $95 per year. This figure will be higher if the leaky door is located in close proximity to a thermostat.
