Exterior Door Tips to save you money, heating.

Lower temperatures and low humidity have made changes to many of our homes, which will cost you a lot of money over the next few months. Most of our homes have wooden door jambs, wooden doors and doors with wooden interior structure framing, as well. During cold temperatures and low humidity, wood shrinks and will cause gaps in your door seal and allows cold air to be drawn into your home. Here is a few tips, you can take, to save money on your heating bill.
1.       Check the door seals and make sure they are flexible and maintain a good seal all around the door and adjust as needed. If the seals are hard or damaged in any way; replace them. Use a putty knife to slip between the door jamb and seal, near the bottom or top, twist lightly to pull the seal from its groove. You can purchase the seals at hardware and big box stores. Cut to length and insert back into the groove.
2.       Stand back and look at the bottom of the door handle side and see if there is a gap. If there is, you can purchase a wedge seal at a hardware or big box store. You should only need one or two, pull the paper away and push into place. The wedge seal should last through the winter.
3.       Adjust your threshold as needed by using a Philips screwdriver, turning the adjustment screws clockwise to adjust the threshold up.
4.       If your threshold does not adjust, you may have to replace the sweep seal on the bottom of the door. These can be purchased at the hardware or big box stores, and you may have to use a hacksaw to cut them to size. Make sure you leave enough flexibility with the sweep so when the door and jambs expand, it will not seize the door.
5.       In many areas, it may already too late to caulk around the exterior casing but if you have the opportunity, check the caulk and if you get temperatures above fifty-five degrees, go ahead and seal the gaps.
Taking a few moments and checking your exterior doors may save you a ton of money and keep you from having cold feet.
 I teach a class at Santa Fe College, adult/community education, titled; “What Home Owners Need to Know”. It’s two, two hour blocks of instruction. If you would like to have this class brought to your community, please contact me. I use my published “Home Owner’s Manual” as reference and can include my other publication; “Tools, Tips and Remodeling Plan”, as well. Those who have attended my class believed, four hours wasn’t enough, they wanted more information!