Tips for a cozy and noise-reduced home with well-sealed windows and doors

An intact build­ing envel­ope makes a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the feel­ing of well-being in your own four walls. In real life, how­ever, win­dow and door seals are often leaky in many places. Our expert gives tips on how you can avoid unwanted drafts, pre­vent your rooms from cool­ing down too much in winter or over­heat­ing in sum­mer, and reduce the influ­ence of noise-related stress – all of this achieved by rel­at­ively simple means.

Tip 1: Analyze the current situation

Do you have the feel­ing there are a lot of leaks in and around the house? Then take action! The best way is to hire a pro­fes­sion­al win­dow fit­ter, build­ing expert or energy con­sult­ant to ana­lyze the cur­rent situ­ation. Thanks to their exper­i­ence, these experts may also detect and loc­ate leaks that you haven’t noticed your­self. Based on their find­ings, an action plan for the imple­ment­a­tion of mod­ern­iz­a­tion meas­ures should be drawn up. The good news for you as a homeown­er or ten­ant: It is not always neces­sary to insu­late the whole build­ing envel­ope or to replace all win­dows at once in order to improve the energy effi­ciency and provide bet­ter noise pro­tec­tion.

Tip 2: Do it yourself or hire a specialist company for the job

The prop­er seal­ing of win­dows and doors is a highly effect­ive and inex­pens­ive meas­ure. If you are a skilled DIY­er and want to do it your­self, you can install self-adhes­ive rub­ber seal­ing strips along the win­dow frames and sash edges. Or you can seal the exist­ing joints with a sil­ic­one or acryl­ic seal­ant. But it is much more effect­ive to hire a pro­fes­sion­al to do the job. Over time, not only the extern­al seal­ing between the win­dow frame and masonry becomes brittle and per­meable, but also the insu­la­tion between win­dow pane and frame. Elim­in­at­ing these defects requires a great deal of expert­ise. A win­dow fit­ter can also check to what extent exist­ing roller shut­ter boxes need to be insu­lated. Fur­ther­more, it may also make sense to insu­late parts of the build­ing envel­ope such as the win­dow reveals.