A warm house offers a very comforting environment. In some cases, the small gaps around a houses’ outlets let in more cold air. This cold air has the potential to ruin a completely perfect evening. You may wonder if a gasket can seal an outlet to keep the air in your home in such a situation.
Boxing in the air in your house is advantageous in several ways. First, it blocks the sometimes awful smell from outside. You don’t have to worry about stale air or unwanted odours. You also get a chance to save a few coins on heating and cooling your home when you buy from Gorilla Gasket.
A gasket can seal an outlet and keep the air in your home. However, a few considerations have to be made when sealing. Read through this article to get a better understanding of gaskets and the installation process.
Using a Gasket To Seal an Outlet
Modern houses have room for sockets and other electrical outlets, leaving tiny gaps on the wall. If you stand close to these outlets during a cold day, you will often feel cold air piercing your skin. This may cause you to spend more money on air conditioning.
To determine how much cold air is getting into your home through the outlets, you can conduct a blower door test. The test works by depressurizing your home and turning it into a vacuum chamber. The test results might alarm you by indicating that you are losing too much air and receiving excess from the outside.
A gasket will help you solve this problem. There is a wide range of gaskets in the market. Therefore, you need to be keen when selecting the one that is pocket friendly but convenient.
One of the widely used gaskets by homeowners is the foam gasket. It is installed around the sockets and other outlets in the house. These foam gaskets seal the cavities in the walls behind your home’s outlets. This insulation separates the barrier from your house’s living space.
You may wonder where air from the outlets comes from. Well, the space provided for the electrical wiring leaves more than enough room for the wires. These extra spaces allow a path for air to cross from outside to your living space. The cavities in your walls also have pipes that introduce air into your home.
The Effectiveness Of Gaskets
People often tend to use more gaskets than needed to stop the air inside the house from escaping. When using many gaskets, you expect that your home will be better air sealed, which is not the case.
The use of gaskets, however, is just one part of the solution. There are a few more things that you need to accompany your sealing with for effectiveness.
Let us break this concept a little further. The insulating foam you will use is fitted under the receptacle cover plate. Sockets and other electrical outlets in modern houses are mounted in a junction box. The gasket is supposed to extend over the junction box’s edges entirely. The cold draft will not get around after this gasket has been extended over the edges.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming amount of air that moves through the walls requires the gaskets to be provided with additional help. The junction boxes in the house sit on holes with a three by five inches dimension.
Additionally, most homeowners do not air seal these boxes leading to more money being spent on heating the house’s air. So, let’s learn how to save some money through the installation of gaskets.
The Installation of Foam Gaskets
An efficient method of reducing the air cooling and heating cost is sealing points that air escapes through. After insulating other possible air leakage points, your attention is directed to the electrical outlets. If you want to seal these spaces without changing your sockets’ appearance, use a foam insulating gasket.
Safety in Gasket Installation
As much as you need to save some extra coins, do not look for a shortcut solution. First, locate your house’s circuit box. You don’t want to cut the bulbs’ electrical supply and work in the dark. Make sure you switch off the sockets’ circuit cutting the electrical power flow to the specific outlets you aim to seal.
The hassle is reduced in modern houses by marking of circuits. All you have to do is read or look at the illustration drawn on the circuit box. Use the appropriate gear at all times in the gasket installation process.
Required Installation Equipment
The first tools you will require are screwdrivers. One should be slotted while the other screwdriver should have Phillip’s head. These two tools will enable you to loosen and tighten the screws without any difficulties. However, it is important to pick screwdrivers that fit the size of the screws.
You will also need outlet gaskets. Whenever you are buying a gasket, it would be best to choose one that goes in line with the design of the outlet you aim to seal. Otherwise, a wrong-size gasket will worsen your problem instead of fixing it.
Another useful tool during gasket installation is a pair of scissors. With these, you will be able to cut any unwanted parts leaving you with the perfect sizes. Consequently, you will maintain your original socket appearance.
The Installation Steps To Be Followed
First, ensure that you remove the screw if the outlet is small or screws that hold your outlet’s faceplate in position. Removing these screws gives you an unblocked view of the area you will be working on.
The second step is removing unwanted wall parts by punching them out using the appropriate hammer. This step makes sure that you have enough room for the foam cutouts without distorting the socket’s outward appearance.
The third step is replacing the faceplate using the screws removed in the first step.
Gasket Installation Directions
First, in the circuit breaker box, switch off socket power breakers. This will prevent you from getting electrocuted, which could be fatal.
Second, use a screwdriver when unscrewing the covers on the outlets. Ensure that the covers and screws are kept separately for safety and easy retrieval.
Third, cut the gasket using scissors and carefully place it over the faceplate in line with the socket’s hole.
Finally, replace the outlet cover. Once you have replaced it, screw it into place.
Conclusion
In conclusion, gaskets are useful in sealing air outlets to keep the air in the house. However, using the correct type of gasket and fitting it correctly is of paramount importance.
Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of how to use a gasket efficiently. Use this knowledge in your gasket installation and save a considerably good amount of air conditioning money.
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