It’s that time of year when there’s a nip in the air and the yearning for fluffy socks and hot chocolate while looking out the window at golden leaves falling off the trees is irresistible.

But on the other side of that comes colder homes. Have you ever walked past your door (both interior and exterior) and felt a whoosh of cold air hitting your ankles or arms?

One way to fix that and make your home warmer (while also increasing thermal efficiency) is through draught-proofing.

Is Draught-proofing Effective?

It most certainly is and for more reasons than just keeping the chill away. According to The Energy Saving Trust, draught-proofing doors is a cost-effective method that helps save energy, makes your home more energy efficient and assists with lowering energy bills. with draught protection, you have better-controlled ventilation, which lowers the chances of condensation and damp in your home.

But perhaps most importantly, draught-proofed doors help to improve comfort while at home.

What Causes Draughty Doors?

Common reasons you may find draughts from your doors include:

• the weather
• door materials
• uneven flooring
• air leaks

The weather

Perhaps the most obvious cause. Doors are designed to combat our Great British Weather (all external doors should have a weather bar also known as a rain deflector) installed that protects your home. It also works to stop draughts blowing into your house.

But sadly, over time, these are warm away, increasing draught coming into your property.

Door material

Some door materials are better suited to draught exclusion than other materials. While wooden doors have excellent weather-resistant capabilities, other doors (like those with foam insulation) make for better draught excluders.

This doesn’t mean that wooden doors have no draught-proofing capabilities at all. You just may need to implement additional draught-proof techniques over the years.

Uneven flooring

If the flooring inside your home isn’t level, there could be gaps where air is freely flowing into your property or into the draughty room.

Air leaks

This is exactly what it says on the tin. If you feel cold air coming through when you walk past your door, air is travelling from the other (colder) side and into your space.

The great news is that these are pretty easy problems to fix (although the uneven floor is more complex). Let’s take a look at how to draught-proof your external and internal doors.

How Do You Stop Draughts from an External Door?

There are a few things you need to look at when fixing a draughty front door or back door to prevent heat loss. Cold air can get in via the:

• Keyhole
• Letterbox
• Gaps around the edge, top and bottom of your door

To fix these, think about:

• Investing in a keyhole cover
• Installing letterbox brush strips or a flap
• If you were thinking of replacing your letterbox, shop around for some draught-proof letterboxes
• Install a hinged flap or draught excluder for the bottom of the door
• Fill the gaps around the edges of the door with foam strips

How Do You Fix a Draughty Interior Door?

For internal doors, the main problem you’ll be trying to solve is air leaking in from the edges, tops and bottom of the door (or doors). Here’s some DIY draught-proofing you can do to help keep warm air in, and cold air out:

• Apply foam tape (also known as self-adhesive foam strips) around the door frame to reduce the gap between the frame and the door.
• Buy a draught excluder, there are some super cute designs out there that can add to the overall aesthetic of the room you’re trying to draught-proof.
• Another option is to install a door sweep rather than a draught excluder.
• If the issue is an uneven floor, then a draught excluder can help in the short term, but you will ultimately have to even out the floor to fix the problem properly.

Remember that you aren’t trying to block out airflow entirely! You’re just trying to limit the chilly air entering your warm room.

What to Do when Draught-proofing Your Doors Doesn’t Work

If you’d draught-proofed all of your internal doors and your front and back door then the problem may be elsewhere. Next on the list is to check (if these are in the problem room) your windows, chimney pot, wall cracks, floorboards and skirting boards, extractor fan and loft hatch.

A more complex issue if these other checks come back fine is your pipework.

By fixing draughty doors you can not only keep your home warm but you could save on your energy bills by not having to turn your heating up to combat cold air seeping into your room through small gaps between your door and door frame or floor.

Buy Replacement Doors from Vibrant Doors

If you were contemplating upgrading your doors, now might be a great time before the colder weather sets in. At Vibrant Doors, we sell stunning, high-quality external doors, internal doors, door frames and more. Everything we sell is manufactured by trusted brands.

You can also enjoy free delivery when you spend over £750 on your new doors with us and have full peace of mind that you’re covered by our 10-year guarantee against manufacturing defects. Shop our range or get in touch for help and advice on the best doors for your home.