COUNTRY SKILLS

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Even if your house was professionally insulated, check inside door and window casements by using a thin pry bar to remove trim boards. I found heat-leaking cavities around every casement in our place. Don't pack window casements full of expanding foam; it can swell and pinch sashes, making them stick. Squirt in just enough to fill cavities side to side. Once replaced, wood trim will need touching up, but you'll get years of energy savings for your trouble.

One warning: many canned foams use ozone-layer-destroying CFCs or HCFCs as a propellant or expander. Look for an "ozone safe" banner on the can. The fluorocarbon freon is also used to expand rigid foam panels made of urethane and isocyanurate. Freon has been replaced by a more benign expansion gas in expanded styrene, so I look for Styrofoam board.

Infiltration Versus Air Exchange

Back when oil cost 19¢ a gallon, homes were built to lose their air contents several times an hour. With fuel at one dollar per gallon, you want to seal up—but don't overdo it. Air exchange between house and outdoors should be at least a half-houseful an hour. If there's less, indoor air pollution, such as the cancer-suspect formaldehyde (used as a preservative in carpets and upholstering), may build up. If your house sits on radon-bearing rock, the carcinogenic gas may seep in and accumulate as well.

Plus, with furnace, fireplace, or exhaust fan drawing out 600 cubic feet of air a minute, a too-well-sealed house may become a vacuum chamber that can suck exhaust gases into living spaces.

A properly vented and tuned furnace or brisk wood fire produces little hazardous carbon monoxide. But draft from an open window on a downwind wall or a strong drawing flue can overpower a weaker exhaust, and "backdraft" from smoldering wood embers or a poorly oxygenated oil or gas fire may actually kill you in your sleep.

If your wood-burning stove draws well with a window open, but smokes even a little when the house is closed up, you may have a problem. Crack open a cellar window and open a hole in the floor behind the stove for combustion air. Better, run metal ducting from the stove to the outdoors. If cooking odors linger too long, you can unseal the attic door or cut small closable vents through the wall or ceiling.

Test air exchange by closing up the house and watching smoke from incense or a smoldering cotton string placed on the floor. If smoke rises straight up and pools at the ceiling, you probably have too little air exchange. If you have any doubt, find an insulating contractor with the equipment to analyze air pressure, air exchange, and heat loss.

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