Does your house have ghosts?

I’ve posted on another blog in the past about the vampires that all modern homes have lurking in 

them – those little energy sucking vampires that are associated with almost all electrical devices that we have all over our homes.  You can easily spot the vampires in your home by turning out all of the lights at night and seeing how many things are still glowing in the darkness. Those are vampires. You can read that post by clicking here; but what about ghosts? Does your house have them too?

Ghosts hang out in various places in many homes. One of the more noticeable places is on the

ceilings. These ghosts are the faint little dark splotches that start at the wall edge and seem to crawl outward towards the center of the room. They all go one way and seem to be evenly spaced. They are evenly spaced because that are indications of where your ceiling joists run across the room. These ghosts are caused by poor insulation in the attic along and above the ceiling joists, which allows cold air to get down to the topside of the wallboard. Those cold spots on the ceiling tend to cause a little condensation and the natural flow of heated air in the room does the rest to create the ghosts by carrying minute bits of airborne dust upward where they stick to the moist areas. In no time at all, you have ghosts!

Another area where ghosts sometimes congregate is at entry doors. If the door doesn’t seal properly, especially at the bottom the cold air leaking in causes the same damp areas on floors or carpeting that

can collect dust and dirt, especially right at the threshold. All of a sudden you have ghosts in your carpet. You can usually prevent or cut down on this type of ghosting by replacing the door’s bottom seal. Just using one of those cute little door draft gadgets that lies on the floor along the door bottom won’t necessarily prevent these ghosts from appearing.

Your closets, especially those on outside walls are another favorite places for ghosts to congregate. The issue is usually the same as for the ceiling ghosts – inadequate insulation in the attic at the top of the closet. Is it time to call the ghost busters? 

You can use Kilz on the painted areas and repaint them, but the ghosts will come back if you don’t fix the root of the problem, which is the inadequate insulation in your attic or bad seals on your entry door bottoms. The primary benefit of getting that insulation upgraded and puttng new seals on your doors will be the reduction in your heating and cooling bills, but a good secondary benefit is that it should rid your house of ghosts. Then you can focus your attention on vampire hunting to further reduce your energy bills.