I don’t know where you live, but its been bone chilling cold here. Like, at or below zero for several consecutive days with wind chills in the negative double digits. If there was any doubt…there is none now. It’s clear that:
Around the Heartland on FIRE household this typically means everyone is sick all the time and that our gas bill for heating Castle HoF is through the roof. In fact, looking back on our 2017 spending, we burned through $1,000 on gas (most of which is heating).
A Call to Action
As the arctic temps started settling in my wife muttered the words that set what happened next into action:
“I feel cold air blowing through the door.”
A quick wave of the hand over the door revealed that an absurd amount of icy air was blowing into the room. Infuriated, I quickly checked the other exterior doors…. more of the same. Faced with the prospect of dollars upon dollars flying out the door and worse… an uncomfortable wife, I said to myself: “eff that!”
Now was the time. Time to fight back. Time to reclaim comfort and dollars and put Old Man Winter in his place.
It was time for stripping!
*record scratch* Huh?
Weather Stripping. I mean weather stripping. Sheesh.
The Department of Energy says “air sealing an old or especially drafty house can save more than 20% on heating and cooling bills. This house is about 30 years old, so I don’t know about the “old” part, but damn, she is drafty. Looking at last year’s heating bill a 20% savings would amount to nearly $200. That doesn’t even account for savings during the summer cooling period.
I was intrigued. And cold. Definitely cold. I decided to give weather stripping a shot. Further, I decided I might as well share the process and findings with you, the reader.
The Research
There was none really. I took the standard approach of the classic red-blooded male: Ready, Fire, Aim. Basically, I looked at the current weatherstripping then ran off to home improvement store to find a replacement. There were a few different options there to choose from. Hindsight being 20-20, I could have referred back to the Department of Energy’s website, which has a good breakdown on the available types and uses of various weather stripping.
Anyways, while at the store, I decided to replace the weather stripping on the top and sides of the exterior doors, where I felt a draft. Additionally, I chose to replace the door sweeps, since I could see some daylight under the doors. Here are the products I ended up with (Disclaimer, these are affiliate links. You won’t pay more to buy through them, but this blog may earn a commission.)
The total bill was around $100 for 4 doors (including three strips of stripping and 4 sweeps).
The Install
This was easy and quick when compared with most other home DIY projects.
I started by just pulling out the crappy old stripping seen here:
So, once the old was out, it was in with the new:
There is a groove in the door frame that the stripping is pushed into and you simply trim it to length with a pair of scissors. Helpful Hint: I found that using a flat head screwdriver was useful in pushing the stripping in when it was being stubborn. I also found that in a few instances I had to adjust the stripping out of the groove a bit with the flat head screwdriver to ensure a proper seal with the door. Here is a pic of the new stripping going in:
Next, I installed the door sweeps. For this I had to take the doors off the hinges (just pop the 3 pins out with screwdriver and hammer) so I could remove the old deteriorated sweeps. It’s nice to have a second set of hands for taking the doors off and putting them back on. Solid exterior doors are quite a bit heavier than hollow interior doors.
Of course, I decided to go it alone… and got myself in a bind resulting in me screaming for help from my wife, while precariously balancing a door. This is not an isolated incident.
Remember: Do as I say, not as I do.
Anyways, once the doors were off I used some pliers to pull the sweeps off. They were held on by staples and I had to cut a few staples with some side cutters to get them out of the way. No big deal really.
Then I simply slid the new sweeps on and re-hung the doors. They clamp down on the door and require no screws or adhesive. You can adjust them up or down as necessary to make a solid seal. Here is the finished product:
Total elapsed time: Just under 2 hours for 4 doors. Not too shabby for the first time trying something. I gotta say, you get immediate satisfaction feeling the lack of drafts.
Well is it Saving Money?
So far… Yes.
If you looked at last month’s heating bill vs. this month’s bill you wouldn’t believe me since it actually went up about 1 buck. But the temps over the last month were MUCH lower then the preceding month. I did a little snooping at weather.gov and pulled historical temperature data for my area. I found that the November 2017′ average temp was 48 degrees vs. 35 degrees for December 2017, so I should have seen a big jump in the bill if nothing changed.
When I compare to the same period in 2016, I find the current bill is actually lower by $26.49 or a reduction of 20%. The average temp in December 2016 was 34.8 degrees vs 34.9 degrees in December 2017… that’s pretty much apples to apples. I’m liking that. About that Department of Energy claim of 10-20% savings? Looking spot on right now.
In terms of energy, we burned 170.12 therms (a therm is 100,000 Btu) in December 2016 vs. 120.16 therms this past month. That’s a savings of about 50 therms, or 5 million Btu in one month!!! Take that carbon footprint!
What’s Next?
To get a comprehensive idea of the impact of the weather stripping I plan to monitor the savings throughout the year. I am particularly interested to see what impact it has on cooling costs, which can run as much as, or more than, heating costs here. Moving forward I am planning on setting up a page tracking the savings (or lack thereof) of this, and possibly other energy saving measures.
What kinds of energy saving measures have you tried? Got any results to show?