Reducing Air Infiltration
The tax credit for sealing your home from air leaks applies only to materials like caulk or foam insulation, not installation labor. Now, given that reduction of air infiltration is one of the most effective ways to dramatically reduce your energy consumption, I have no idea why the government creates a disincentive to seal your home from air leaks by not allowing installation labor costs to be deducted. Sealing your home is labor intensive and about 75% of the cost you'll spend will be in labor.
To properly seal your home from air leakage you should also have a blower door test conducted to see where the air leaks are occurring (no, there is also no tax credit for a blower door test).
Once you have the blower door test performed, you may find air leaks are coming from a combination of areas such as rim-joists, windows, doors, skylights, poorly performing or missing weather stripping, fireplace flue dampers, chases, soffits, electrical outlets and switches, kitchen exhaust fans, old milk bottle pass-through doors in an exterior wall of an older home, recessed lighting, attic stairs and many other places.
