How to Seal Out Window Drafts in Winter

LESLIE: Heading over to Wisconsin now to chat with Dorothy. How can we help you?

DOROTHY: In the wintertime, we get cold air around our windows.

TOM: OK.

DOROTHY: And so we put plastic. Some of them, we plastic the outside up the windows and some of them inside of the house. I’m wondering which is better or if we should plastic both the inside and the outside.

LESLIE: It depends, really, on the functionality of the window. When you’re feeling the draft, is it on the glass itself? Does it seem to be on the operable parts of the sash, where the window unit goes up and down, or is it around the trim work?

DOROTHY: On a couple of them, it’s actually on both: the glass and around the trim work, yeah.

LESLIE: OK. Well, there’s a couple of products out there that maybe you’ve not heard of and there’s one that’s a weatherstripping caulk. And basically, what you would do is you would close your window and around the sash – you know, the operable part of the window itself – you would caulk, essentially, that window closed, sealing out that draft. And then what happens when springtime comes and it’s warm again, you peel it right out.

Now, the issue with that is if it’s a window that, say, is in the kitchen that you want to open and close while cooking or a window that should be used as an exit in the event of an emergency, you want to make sure that you consider those before you seal off all of those windows.

Now, DAP makes one. It’s called Seal ‘N Peel. Red Devil makes one? Did I make that up?

TOM: Yeah. And you may not find it in the hardware store aisle; you may have to ask for it. But it’s temporary caulk so – and it goes on and then you peel it off in the spring.

DOROTHY: So it comes off real nice.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm. It just pulls right off. And you want to make sure that it’s actually a temporary caulk, because you don’t want to go put a latex caulk in there that’s not meant for this purpose. Because if you try to remove it, it’s not going to come out.

TOM: Yeah, the weatherstripping caulk peels off; it feels like you’re peeling a strip of rubber off in the spring.

LESLIE: Like the backing, when you get a new credit card and it’s stuck to that paper?

DOROTHY: OK.

LESLIE: Like it’s got that sticky consistency.

DOROTHY: And I can do that and maybe still put plastic on the outside or inside, right?

TOM: Well, yeah, if you feel like you need it. But you might find that if you seal away those gaps, you don’t need to do that, Dorothy, OK?

DOROTHY: Oh, I appreciate that very much.

TOM: Alright. Well, good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.