The average German household spends about 1,600 Euros each year on energy costs to cover heating and hot water. And the figure goes up year after year. These days, just a quick glance at a home electricity, gas, or heating oil bill is enough to prove it. According to the German Federal Statistical Office (Statistisches Bundesamt), the price of light heating oil alone went up by 57 %from May 2007 to May 2008. Electricity prices rose 5.1% in the same period and natural gas became 4.7 % more expensive year on year. The most effective way to resist this price explosion is by saving energy.

There are a lot of tips on how to do this, but not all of them are as fast and cost-effective to implement as sealing window gaps with sealing strips from the tesamoll® product range.

Two independent institutes have examined the air-tightness and savings potential offered by tesa’s sealing strips, and with impressive results: Consumers can save up to 35 percent of their annual heating costs if they seal gaps in their windows with tesamoll®.

The worst energy offenders

The devil is always in the details, in this case in the masonry itself: When it comes to household energy use, exterior walls, roofs, foundation floors, and windows are often true energy wasters. Depending on the type of construction and fittings, windows can make up 27 percent of a home’s overall energy consumption. But complete renovation, including replacing windows, is not within everyone’s budget and requires a thorough renovation plan in any case, meaning it is feasible only in the medium to long term. Therefore, effective stopgap solutions are needed – which in turn brings our focus to window gaps in particular, which allow air to pass freely without our knowledge. The result: Ratepayers are literally throwing the money they pay for heating costs out the window.

Total sealing

Help is at hand, in the form of sealing strips that close window gaps and prevent heat loss. tesa AG, which is also the market leader in the segment of sealing strips for windows and doors, has now had its tesamoll® product range tested for air-tightness by the Institut für Fenstertechnik e. V. (ift), in Rosenheim, Germany. The outcome: All of the products in the tesamoll® line deliver 100% sealing. Based on the expert report issued by the institution, the energy experts at Tübingen-based engineering firm Ebök set up various models to calculate the potential heating cost savings that the individual products could generate.

Depending on the width of the gaps around their windows and the purchase price and life span of the tesamoll® product selected, consumers can save heating costs in the triple digits each year. If, for example, a window gap that is 2 mm wide is sealed with the high-quality tesamoll® classic rubber profile, which lasts for eight years, the heating cost savings after four years add up to nearly 180 Euros per year. The independent energy experts also found that for gaps more than 2 mm wide, every type of tesamoll® pays for itself after just one winter season.

Assumptions and calculations were operated by ebök Planung und Entwicklung GmbH Tübingen on behalf of tesa AG.

The independend engeneering company ebök is offring 25 years of competence energy management, thermal building physics, the development of energy concepts for buildings and residential areas as well as quality management for the construction industry.

Energy Saving Calculator

Here you can easily calculate how much energy you are able to save by using tesamollreg: Energy Saving Calculator. You not only save money but als reduce the CO2-emission of your household.

(*) The potential savings were calculated for buildings typically constructed in Germany in the 1960s at medium / average German weather conditions, heating for an average room temperatur of 20° C, medium exposur to wind.

The potential savings are based on the assumption that all window have been leacky before and all gaps have been sealed with tesamoll®.

Note: The certain savings are depending on the individual characteristics of the building to be sealed, the way it is used (heating and airing habits) and the temperature development throughout the year. The figures calculated here are only giving an orientation that can differ from the real savings.