It Came From The Basement, and Cobwebs
JasonQ
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
Walking past the door from our (unfinished) basement, I notice a major draft when the heat is running. Enough to levitate a la air hockey a piece of construction paper.
What’s causing this? The furnace and ERV are in the basement. Besides the cold feet, is this A Bad Thing?
On a related note, I read a couple different places that spiderwebs in the basement are evidence of air infiltration. Is this true, in y’alls experience? ‘Cause I got spiderwebs in the basement, or did this summer/fall. I’m planning on sealing up the band joist and insulating the basement walls yet this year, so I assume that’d take care of it.
And if the spiderweb=draft thing is true, could this be related to my draft from under the basement door?
Replies
Spider webs means you have spiders and that's all. They just come in wherever they can. You can have spiders without large gaps, although little spiders don't need much space to sneak in. They do, however, like it dark. I went around the house and sealed all kinds of cracks, gaps, little openings and all of the caulking around the storm windows, which was old and cracking.
A house can't be sealed completely, but if the furnace is on and blowing, a sheet of paper going on tour at the basement door means that your supply ducting may not be adequate. You already have a cold floor- why not insulate the walls? That would raise the average temperature down there and it really makes a big difference in comfort.
Get yourself an incense stick and trace where the leak is coming from.
"Get yourself an incense stick and trace where the leak is coming from.", its more fun with some herb! LOL.
You do that and the only thing you are going to be tracing is your footsteps to the fridge.
"Get yourself an incense stick and trace where the leak is coming from.", its more fun with some herb"Problem with that is that nothing ever gets done about it. You just sit and look at it for a while and then suddenly you remember an old song by the Carpenters...Close To You or some sh!t...and you ramble back upstairs to rifle through the attic storage to see if you can find the LP album that song was on because it was the album that Carol....or was it Renee?...no Ruth! Yeah, it was the album Ruth gave to you back in '73 and later you used it to clean your weed on. Forget about the fact that there isn't any turntable or record player in the house and hasn't been for years.
Karen and Ken where are you now?!Meanwhile, there's spiders in your basement, and the cold winds do blow.
Get yourself an incense stick and trace where the leak is coming from.
Oh sure, that'd prompt some interesting looks from the wife. Yet another conversation I don't want to have...
Jason
If the draft is OUT of the basement it's probably caused by leakage from the hot air supply ducts.
Spider webs tend to form in still air, not drafts.