What to do if there’s a draft?

Draft is not only uncom­fort­able. It is also a warn­ing sign for leaks in the facade, which can be a drain on heat­ing energy and money. In fact, weak points in the insu­la­tion of a house can cause heat­ing costs to skyrock­et. Of par­tic­u­lar import­ance is the con­nec­tion between wall and win­dow. Fail­ure to prop­erly seal this crit­ic­al area will quickly res­ult in unwanted thermal bridges. These are points where the sur­face is colder than the rest of the build­ing shell so that the warm, humid air depos­its there. This leads to the form­a­tion of mold, which is not only harm­ful to the build­ing fab­ric but also to our health. Prop­er win­dow insu­la­tion is there­fore key. Seal­ants and seal­ing tapes car­ry­ing an eco-label like EMICODE^® EC1 are good for the envir­on­ment and for our health.

The best way to find leaks in the build­ing shell is the “Blower Door Test”. With the help of a spe­cial device, the energy con­sult­ant gen­er­ates a pos­it­ive or neg­at­ive pres­sure dif­fer­en­tial between inside and out­side and thus makes the leaks vis­ible. Depend­ing on the wall and win­dow frame mater­i­als, leaks can be plugged with gun-applied seal­ants like sil­ic­one. Oth­er gap fillers are cov­er strips, seal­ing tapes, foils/films and pro­files, e.g. made of rub­ber-like TPE (ther­mo­plastic elast­omer). Accord­ing to the Ger­man Energy Sav­ing Ordin­ance (EnEV), the prin­ciple must always be “Inside tight­er than out­side”. This pre­vents the warm and humid room air from con­dens­ing on the colder sur­faces and gives mold no chance. Thermal and sound insu­la­tion takes place in the middle insu­la­tion lay­er. The out­er lay­er should be open to dif­fu­sion so that mois­ture can escape to the out­side. It also pro­tects against wind and rain.

It is import­ant for win­dows and doors to fit well into the rest of the insu­la­tion. Houses that are thickly wrapped in insu­la­tion require prop­er vent­il­a­tion – either by means of a vent­il­a­tion sys­tem or by reg­u­larly open­ing the win­dows. In addi­tion, all mater­i­als installed inside the house should be healthy for liv­ing. Pol­lut­ants do not simply dis­ap­pear through open win­dows. Products with the EC1 seal – clearly vis­ible on the pack­aging – meet the world’s most strin­gent emis­sion lim­its. GEV, the cer­ti­fic­a­tion body, has been test­ing and cer­ti­fy­ing insu­la­tion mater­i­als for win­dows and facades, wall pan­els and numer­ous oth­er products for more than 20 years. The products are tested by inde­pend­ent labor­at­or­ies using the test cham­ber meth­od. To ensure long-term com­pli­ance with the lim­it val­ues, reg­u­lar spot checks are car­ried out by neut­ral experts and test­ing insti­tutes. This is a decis­ive advant­age of EMICODE^® over oth­er cer­ti­fic­a­tion sys­tems for health and envir­on­ment­al com­pat­ib­il­ity.