It’s your home so you should decide what stays and goes in it, especially when it can be costing you money on energy bills- a significant enough reason to learn how to eliminate draughts in your home.
A thorough search and correction of these draughts will make it easier for you to achieve just the right temperature for you and your home, so it makes sense to spend your time on this little task and get a significant return.
What are draughts?
Draughts are spaces between your home construction that create gaps where cold air can leak in during the winter and hot air during the summer.
These gaps act against all the steps homeowners take to keep cool in the summer or warm in the winter.
That’s why for many homes fixing draughts, and later on, avoiding them can be a way to better control the temperature inside and lower some of the cost of energy spent in heating and cooling.
Now that you are clear on the what and the why you can get started on how to eliminate draughts in your home.
How to fix a draught in your home
The first step to eliminating these bothersome air leaks, and saving on your energy bills, is figuring out how to find them, here are some clues that could indicate a draught:
- Light creeping in under doors
- Light entering through window frames
- Felling an air current where there should not be one
- The paper test: hold a piece of paper around floorboard, fireplaces, doors or other, if it moves it could be a crack letting air in
- More than ‘normal’ rattling of windows and doors in storms
Upgrade your windows
Windows are one of the main sources of draughts in any home, they are a literal pathway for air but should only be so when you want it to be.
Many old homes can have deteriorated windows with plenty of cracks letting your precious hot and cold air escape.
Choosing to improve this part of your home can make all the difference, something like Timber Windows Direct can be an option for your home.
One of the most significant benefits of this upgrade is that it can be done quickly without much hassle, and the features new windows come with can potentially last longer and save you more money, because of the quality of the materials.
Seal doors
When it comes to doors, you only need to eliminate draughts in doors that lead to the outside or rooms you don’t want to heat/cool, here are some places to consider:
- Keyholes: you can easily get a cover
- Under the door: a draft stopper should do just fine
- Cracks in the edges: use sealer appropriate to your wall/door
Other steps to consider
- Chimney: you might need some help but either fit a cap cover over the chimney or get a draught excluder
- Attic Hatches: you insulate with standard materials
- Spaces and cracks in walls: you can use fillers, cement, or other construction materials.
- Floorboard: fill in the gaps or consider getting a carpet to cover the draughts
