Rush Doesn't Understand How Insulation Works

Rush Limbaugh today took aim at Obama's "Cash for Caulkers" plan, which gives homeowners rebates and other incentives to weatherize their houses.  If you ask Rush, this is apparently the worst thing ever.

Rush, unsurprisingly, gets the science completely wrong.  And his callers only add to the confusion in a hilarious fashion.  I was reminded of something I read about recently, which is the South Korean phenomenon of "fan death."  In South Korea, there is a persistent superstition that people die if they fall asleep in a room where a fan is running.  Theories on why people die vary, from "the fan sucks all the oxygen away from your face and you suffocate," to "the fan's motor burns up all the air in the room and you suffocate."

It's obvious to us in the West that the "fan death" superstition is just that - a silly superstition.  But it's serious business in South Korea, where fans are sold with timers so that the fans switch off after a certain amount of time.  

We can laugh at this, but it turns out that Rush Limbaugh and his callers are unable to distinguish between "ventilation" and "drafts."  Now it is true that a house needs proper ventilation, in order to avoid a build up of moisture and humidity.  This is why attics, for example, have those funny louvered ventilation panels.

However, there is a big difference between "ventilation" (as you might find on your stove's range hood) and "windows that leak air."  As Rush would know if he had ever spent a winter in a cheap apartment, with drafts blowing in the cracks around the window frame and in the gaps between the window's seals.

Drafts are bad.  Ventilation is good.  Drafts are caused by design flaws.  Ventilation is added by design.  By caulking the edges of your windows, you will not be damaging your house's ventilation.

Nor will you, as some of his callers seem to believe, be risking the deaths of your family members by suffocation.  Even a house with no actual built in ventilation is not air tight.  Trust me, even if you caulk up the gaps in your window frames, air will still enter and exit your home.  You will have plenty of oxygen.  Honest.

Unsurprisingly, Rush also uses this as a chance to trot out his ignorance about climate change again.  If global warming is a problem, Rush asks, then why should we worry about keeping the heat in our houses?

First of all, "global warming" is a term that refers to the temperature of the oceans.  It results in a great deal of weather disruption, which can include (e.g.) increased number and severity of hurricanes over the Atlantic, or snow in weird places (like Texas).  It doesn't literally mean that every single place gets consistently warmer - it has never meant that, and who knows why Rush remains willfully ignorant on this point.

Second of all, even if it were true that every single place was going to get consistently warmer, where do you think your air conditioning goes?  Maybe out through the gaps in your windows?  Maybe you want to caulk those, to save a few bucks on your electricity bill?  I mean, not if you have a giant mega-mansion like Rush Limbaugh does.  But for the rest of us folks, then absolutely.