Perfect tightness for your windows

Dur­ing the cold sea­son, people nat­ur­ally spend more time indoors than out­doors. But when there are cold drafts inside, you will feel quite uncom­fort­able in your own four walls. If the win­dows are not prop­erly insu­lated, heat­ing alone does­n’t help: The more you heat, the high­er your heat­ing costs. Per­fectly tight win­dows are of key import­ance if you want to ensure a thermally insu­lated and sound­proofed home. Build­ing own­ers who opt for low-emis­­sion seal­ing products with the EMICODE^® label are on the safe side: they can be sure to enjoy a healthy indoor cli­mate.

Accord­ing to the Ger­man Fed­er­al Envir­on­ment Agency, room heat­ing accounts for more than two thirds of total energy con­sump­tion in private house­holds. New thermal insu­la­tion can help to sig­ni­fic­antly reduce the energy con­sump­tion. Three quar­ters of the exist­ing build­ing stock are more than 30 years old, no longer energy-effi­­cient and in need of refur­bish­ment. A lot of heat is lost – above all through leaky win­dows, roofs and unin­su­lated front doors. This not only affects the liv­ing com­fort and increases the risk of mold, but also causes the heat­ing bill to skyrock­et.

Basic­ally, the inside must be tight­er than the out­side. Oth­er­wise, the warm and humid room air will con­dense on the colder sur­faces and res­ult in mois­ture and mold growth. Espe­cially with older win­dows, it is neces­sary to replace the insu­la­tion after some time, because the sea­son­al fluc­tu­ations in tem­per­at­ure can cause cracks in the mater­i­als. If mois­ture pen­et­rates, they become por­ous. Build­ing own­ers and ten­ants can eas­ily check for leaks. With a candle, for example, you can quickly determ­ine wheth­er drafts enter the room. Or you take a piece of paper and clamp it between win­dow frame and win­dow. If you can pull it out without res­ist­ance, the con­tact pres­sure is too low. All these are signs of leaky win­dows.

You want to ensure that your home is air­tight, well-insu­lated and energy losses are at a min­im­um? Then you should apply seal­ing tapes, espe­cially at the con­nec­tions between win­dows and walls. The tight­er the interi­or of a build­ing, the more import­ant is a healthy indoor cli­mate free of pol­lut­ants. When choos­ing insu­la­tion pan­els and seal­ing products with the EMICODE^® EC1 label, you can be sure that the room air will be largely unpol­luted. For more than 20 years now, GEV EMICODE^® has been test­ing and cer­ti­fy­ing build­ing products with respect to their emis­sions. When under­tak­ing build­ing or renov­a­tion pro­jects, the label is there­fore a use­ful indic­at­or of which products are most com­pat­ible with the res­id­ents’ health.