"P. Thompson" wrote in message
ocaldomain...
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, louie wrote:

Other things you can do is move around your house with an incense stick
looking for drafts. Seal up as many drafts and leaks as you can.
There are professional services that will install a temporary blower
into a doorway and will actually pull air from the house, creating a
slight vacuum. Then they will actually test how much negative pressure
is created and how much air volume is moving through the fan and from
that determine how "leaky" your house is. They usually go around with
a smoke pencil looking for leaks while this is happening too.

Get one of those infrared thermometers and point it around the attic if
you can move around reasonably in there. I have an Extech IR201 (one of
the cheaper ones) but any brand will do.

Mine showed that my efforts to close the gaps around my vent stack
penetration were unsuccessful by identifying a warm plume of air coming
out around the insulation.

Sounds like an interesting tool. Do you think it's sensitive enough to spot
gaps in outer wall insulation, when used outside the house, or is that heat
loss too diffuse for such an instrument? Short of ripping out pieces of
wall, I'm not sure how to determine what's in those walls.