Air Infiltration is Everywhere

Air leaks in this house are everywhere. Some are so obvious, one wonders how she missed them before now.

The ceilings are not sheetrock, they are either acustical tile or material you normally associate with dropped ceilings.Normal housing construction has sheetrock for walls and ceilings so tape and mudd cover any gaps. Thus, airflow is kept to a minimum (there are other steps that good builders use, but lets just go with that simplified version).

With tiles, no such jointing can be done. Any gaps are covered with crown molding. This is something I completely missed, even after having new sheetrock installed. Here is a small joint (very rare in this house)

How could I have missed such obvious issues while I was putting up the crown molding in the bedroom? Once I recognized it, the crown molding came back down and I started filling gaps. With very small gaps, I could use rope caulk. With larger gaps, more creativity was involved. I had some weather seal from previous projects (some from the old house); some of felt and some of foam, so I started with what I had for the gaps less than 3/4 inches

I had nothing large enough for the 3/4 and larger gaps, so scraps of foam board are temporarily being used.

I have gotten larger foam weatherstripping to replace the rigid foam. Eventually, I will be putting in sheetrock ceilings and then the gaps will be covered more conventionally. But for now, this will have to do.

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[Cop Car]

Sometimes we just have to recognize that "good enough for now" is good enough for now.