How To Add Insulation Around Windows

If your windows aren't properly insulated, then you may be paying extra on your heating and cooling bills each month. You can simply add some insulation around each window frame and it will only cost a few dollars!

[xaviermccloud]

A good teacher always makes the student feel confident. Some do it nice, some do it with hardship and some do it in between.

[Scoupe]

1:40 really important.
But when using expanding foam and the gap around the window frame is less than 1/4”, how do you ensure that the foam properly penetrates the same depth as the window?

Also. It’s reasonable to say you shouldn’t feel any drafts and you shouldn’t hear noise through the sides of a window before you put trim back on??

[desirabledealsu]

Good video, however, you dont show what to do after the install on the outside of the window frame. The large gap under the window where the window meets the sill? What do you do there? That area needs to be filled in with something!

[thedyslexic]

you say to push the batt insulation all the way back to fill the depth. i thought you LOSE insulation value when you compress fiberglass batts?

[elinorm.walker]

Word to the wise: DO NOT tear and compress fiber glass insulation! Those fibers get embedded in your fingers (even through most gloves) and it can be an awful process when they push their way back out of your skin, weeks, months or years later. I still have this problem after I made this mistake over ten years ago.

[dbfarmultra]

compressing insulation decreases the r value... although it is better than nothing, it is not the way to go.

[thedyslexic]

Help... I recently discovered that there is zero insulation around our windows and when I took the trim off the first window, I could see the house across the street through the gap at the bottom of the window (not at the sides...not sure about the top). At the bottom of each window, the gyproc to the left and right of the windows is also cracking,  peeling, and discolouring which I was told was caused by warm air and cold air meeting and forming condensation that is breaking down the drywall. If I use the low expansion "Great Stuff", will it still expand out onto the stucco on the outside of the house or expand anywhere else...down in behind the stucco wire??? I used a caulking gun and siliconed the gaps between the windows and the stucco on the outside and was thinking of using my prybar to jam a little bit of batt insulation around the windows and then using the spray foam. If I just put insulation, does that act as a vapour barrier too? I had once heard that insulation was not added to some windows nor stucco sealed to the window frames to allow moisture to escape...but that seems weird.

[thisismetoday]

How to seal the middle gap though!!?? No one addresses that issue.

[thedyslexic]

if you took the time to dry-fit that casing, you'd know to shorten your top piece an 1/8 of an inch (to start) to allow the sides to pull back in and fix those poor top corner miter joints...

[MegaMatt]

Lol. NOOO way it takes the average weekend warrior 20 minutes per window. They didn't account for those brad nails not pulling out cleanly. They didn't account for the moulding joints already being glued and cracking and breaking the moulding when you pull it off. They didn't account for WINDOW SILL. They didn't account for re-caulking. For me, this is an hour a window.

[Maverick]

Terrible advice. That pink fiberglass does nothing to stop drafts. That’s why it’s all black and dirty when it’s been in place for a while. It just acts as an air filter

[juliusboy]

Are you serious here now? Like a professional?

[olegpetelevitch]

I buckled my window frame 1st time ! Ha ha !

[uf]

Good try but terrible job! Never use batt insulation for windows, better than nothing but not the correct way to do this. Use a low expanding spray foam and do in two passes. This way when you trim the excess the first pass deep in side will still insulates properly.