With the cold winter weather hitting hard, homeowners are looking for ways to keep warm, and hoping for heating bills that won’t make them faint. One way to accomplish both is to make sure that your doors are winterized. A door can be a big source of heat loss when it is not properly winterized. To prevent this heat loss, you need to fix areas that need to be fixed, insulate what you can, and replace what you need to.
Fixing a door is going to be one of the biggest things you can do to prevent the cold air from getting in, and warm air from getting out.
To start, find where air may be getting in. You can do this by taking a lit candle slowly past all the parts of the door. Wherever the flame flickers, you may have an area that needs to be fixed.
Next, check the condition of the weather stripping around the edges of the door. If it needs to be replaced take care of it now to get a better seal on the door against the cold air. You can also tighten hinges and strike plates to make sure that the door is hanging correctly and is not creating gaps into the house.
Also check the sweep under the door. If you don’t have one, or the one you have needs to be replaced they can be found in most hardware stores, and again it should be done immediately. If you don’t want to add a sweep right now, at least roll up a towel and place it at the bottom of the door to block the cold air from getting in.
During winter, the storm doors that are on your screen doors need to be slid into place if they are going to be effective at all. The closed storm windows over the screens will provide an extra layer of insulation for your doors. If you don’t have a screen door, now would be a good time to call about the installation of a storm door.
Sometimes a door cannot be fixed; it is time to get it replaced. Having to replace a door can be good or bad. Perhaps initially bad for the cost, as new doors are not cheap, but they are a good investment. A new, energy-efficient door can do a much better job of keeping the cold weather out than trying to continue repairs on an old one. Call us or schedule a free home consultation online. Our experienced staff can help you find the perfect entry door solution for your home.
