Weather Stripping Protects, Insulates Homes

Weather stripping is important to a home for many reasons. It prevents the intrusion of outside elements like wind, rain, vermin, and insects; all vital for the long-term upkeep of a structure. Moisture and water damage can ruin door and window jambs and even damage structural elements in a home.

This architectural trim also offers financial benefits. By forming a seal around air gaps, in-home heating and cooling efficiency is greatly improved. Drafts make your heating systems work harder than they need to, and in the summer, reducing the amount of hot, humid air that has access to the home means your AC doesn’t have to struggle as much. And of course, those draft areas can work the other way, where treated air escapes the home.

Weather stripping is often a crosslinked foam product. This makes for a compressible material that still offers the necessary resistance against a surface to form a seal. Having a soft but resilient material for weather stripping allows doors and windows to shut but still push against their jamb. Weather stripping is also good for buildings on a structural level. Windows and doors that slam shut can eventually damage jambs and frames, and even the windows and doors themselves. Weather stripping is shock-absorbing, keeping the structure of your home in better shape. Having that cushioning foam barrier also quiets slamming doors and windows. And while this may not be the most important benefit in terms of cost savings, the piece of mind it offers has a substantial value of its own.