The seven most common air leak locations in Burbank homes are exterior doors, windows, attic access panels, duct penetrations, recessed lights, plumbing penetrations, and the garage-to-house door. Sealing these spots before cooler weather hits can meaningfully reduce your heating costs and improve indoor comfort throughout fall and winter.
Burbank doesn’t get brutal winters—but that doesn’t mean your home is off the hook when temperatures start to dip. When cooler weather rolls in, even mild heat loss adds up fast. Your HVAC system works harder, your energy bills climb, and the air inside your home never quite feels right.
The culprit? Air leaks. These small gaps and cracks let conditioned air escape and cold drafts sneak in, quietly undermining your heating system no matter how well it’s maintained. The good news is that most air leaks are hiding in predictable spots, and you don’t need specialized equipment to find them.
At AC Repair Burbank, our HVAC technicians have more than five years of hands-on experience diagnosing and sealing air infiltration issues across the Burbank area. Based on what we see most often, here are the seven places you should check before the season changes.
1. Exterior Doors: The Most Obvious Starting Point
Stand near your front or back door on a windy day. Feel any air movement around the frame? That’s money leaving your house.
Weatherstripping along the sides and top of exterior doors degrades over time, especially in climates with big temperature swings. The door sweep at the bottom is another frequent problem area—if you can see daylight under a closed door, you have a gap that needs sealing.
What to do: Replace worn weatherstripping with foam tape or V-seal strips. For the bottom gap, install a door sweep or draft stopper. These are low-cost fixes you can handle yourself in under an hour.
2. Windows: Where Small Gaps Create Big Problems
Old or poorly installed windows are a common source of air infiltration, particularly in older Burbank homes. The frame-to-wall junction is often where leaks develop, but window locks and sashes can also lose their seal over time.
Run your hand slowly around each window frame on a cool morning. If you feel cool air moving against your skin, you’ve found a leak. For a more thorough check, hold a lit incense stick near the frame and watch the smoke—any horizontal drift signals airflow.
What to do: Apply rope caulk or silicone caulk along the exterior frame where it meets the siding or stucco. For older single-pane windows, interior window insulation film can make a significant difference in heat retention.
3. Attic Access Panels: The Leak Most Homeowners Forget
Pull-down attic stairs and hatch covers are notoriously leaky. Hot attic air in summer and cold air in winter can move freely through an unsealed attic access point, affecting the temperature of the room directly below it.
This is one of the most overlooked spots during a home energy audit. The hatch itself often lacks insulation, and the frame rarely has any weatherstripping.
What to do: Add adhesive foam weatherstripping around the perimeter of the hatch. For pull-down stair assemblies, consider installing an attic tent or insulated cover on the attic side. This single fix can have a noticeable impact on the comfort of the rooms below.
4. Duct Penetrations: Where Your HVAC System Meets Your Walls
Supply and return air ducts pass through walls, ceilings, and floors throughout your home. Wherever a duct penetrates a surface, there’s a potential gap. These openings are often large enough to allow significant air movement, yet they’re almost never sealed properly during installation.
Check around duct grilles where they meet the wall or ceiling. Look for visible gaps between the duct boot and the drywall—these gaps allow conditioned air to leak into unconditioned spaces like wall cavities and attics rather than reaching the rooms where you need it.
What to do: Use mastic sealant or metal-backed tape (not standard duct tape, which degrades quickly) to seal gaps around duct penetrations. If you’re not sure whether your ducts are leaking, AC Repair Burbank’s HVAC technicians can perform a duct leakage test to quantify the problem.
5. Recessed Lights: A Surprisingly Significant Source of Heat Loss
Recessed can lights installed in ceilings below an attic are one of the most effective pathways for air to escape your home. Older fixtures, in particular, are full of small holes for wiring and heat dissipation—and those holes connect directly to your attic.
Because warm air rises, this type of leak is especially problematic in winter. The heated air in your living space rises to the ceiling, finds the gaps around each recessed light, and flows straight into the cold attic.
What to do: From inside the attic, install airtight covers over each recessed light fixture. Make sure any covers you use are rated for contact with insulation (IC-rated) to prevent fire risk. If your fixtures are outdated, replacing them with airtight LED fixtures eliminates the problem entirely.
6. Plumbing Penetrations: Behind the Walls and Under the Sinks
Every pipe that enters your home creates a potential air leak. Under kitchen and bathroom sinks, look at where the drain pipe and supply lines pass through the cabinet back panel. In many Burbank homes, these gaps were never sealed after installation.
The same applies to exterior walls where hose bibs, gas lines, or drainage pipes exit the building. These penetrations can be surprisingly large—sometimes an inch or more of open space surrounding the pipe.
What to do: Expanding foam sealant works well for gaps around plumbing penetrations. Apply it carefully in layers rather than all at once, as it expands significantly. For larger gaps, use backing material like fiberglass insulation before applying foam.
7. The Garage-to-House Door: Cold Air’s Easy Entrance
If your garage is attached to your home, the door connecting the two spaces deserves special attention. Garages are typically unconditioned, meaning they get cold in winter and hot in summer. A poorly sealed garage-to-house door allows that air to migrate directly into your living space.
This door also has safety implications—it should be sealed to slow the spread of any potential carbon monoxide leak from vehicles or gas appliances in the garage.
What to do: Treat this door exactly like an exterior door. Add weatherstripping around the frame, install a quality door sweep at the bottom, and make sure the door itself is solid-core (not hollow) for better thermal performance. If the existing door is old or damaged, replacing it is worth the investment.
Start Simple, Then Call in the Pros
You don’t need to tackle all seven locations in one weekend. Start with the most accessible spots—exterior doors, windows, and the garage-to-house door—then work your way to less visible areas like duct penetrations and plumbing gaps.
If you complete these checks and still notice drafts, uneven temperatures, or higher-than-expected energy bills once cooler weather arrives, it may be time for a professional assessment. The HVAC technicians at AC Repair Burbank have more than five years of experience helping Burbank homeowners identify and resolve air infiltration problems, duct leakage, and heating system inefficiencies. We can pinpoint exactly where your home is losing conditioned air and recommend the most cost-effective fixes.
Contact AC Repair Burbank before the cooler season sets in—the earlier you address air leaks, the less strain you’ll put on your heating system all winter long.
