If your draught excluder will be placed in a prominent area like the living room, select a style that blends with your existing decor or serves as a statement piece. This pie chart spotlights the key areas in your home where energy tends to be wasted, urging you to consider draught-proofing solutions like UK Oak Doors' offerings for a more energy-efficient home. When collecting accurate surface temperatures you need to be aware of the different emissivity of different materials but for comparing the same material in different places it is fine. What I wanted to do was compare draughty doors with non draughty doors to see the differences in surface temperatures. That way I would know what to expect when we had fixed the draughty doors. However what puzzled me was I seemed to get similar readings on all our exterior doors. I was getting some data but realised that I needed even more firepower to visualise the problem better. Gas leaking from between the double-glazing is another cause of energy inefficiency. This happens when the seals around your double glazing have broken down. You’ll know if this has happened to you because condensation will be visible between the panes of glass; if moisture can get in, then the gas will almost certainly already have gotten out. The inert gas between double glazing panes conducts much less heat than normal air and so if it has leaked out, your glazing will be less efficient. It’s impossible to repair this wear-and-tear, and so it so you will require either a double glazing replacement or a door replacement. As this breakdown is a sign that the door is nearing the end of its life, many people opt to replace their French doors. The most popular measure of energy efficiency in your home is the U-value. This describes how effective a material is as an insulator. The lower the value, the less heat is able to pass through a given area of material in a given amount of time. It’s typically measured in watts per metre squared. A standard double-glazed window will have a U-value of just under three.

Follow the cleaning instructions provided by the manufacturer to ensure you do not damage the material. This close up picture shows that the side light where it meets the floor and the wall is at 5.7°C. More like an outside temperature than the surface in a heated room. Kitchen French Doors Show Similar Characteristics To Lounge Finally, it’s worth considering the environmental cost of using all that extra energy. If your doors are leaking a lot of heat, you’ll end up using more heat trying to keep the inside of your house warm. For the most part, this energy will come from burning fossil fuels which contribute to man-made climate change. So How Is Energy Efficiency Measured?There are several avenues homeowners can explore to draught-proof their homes. Here's a breakdown of some effective methods: Draught excluders are placed at the bottom of your door, employing bristles to create a seal against the floor which halts draughts from entering through the gap beneath the door. 2. What are the benefits of draught excluders? It's an easy DIY idea and there are lots of videos online and articles from craft hobby specialists offering tips on how to make your own draught excluder. It’s a great option if you love to get creative – plus it could save you money on heating and, if you’re reusing materials, will be cheaper than buying a draught excluder from a shop. 7. Cover the keyhole to stop draughts from doors The former option is well worth exploring, as with just a little bit of money and effort you’ll be able to vastly improve the energy-retaining performance of the door. How to Insulate External French Doors

Perfect for external doors, this weatherbar provides an effective draught-proofing solution while adding a touch of elegance with its oak finish. You can view an “edited highlights” version of the video above, shortened to 50 seconds running time. When on the lookout for the perfect draught excluder, certain factors come into play to ensure you make an informed choice. Here's a rundown of key considerations: The image above shows a general cold area right across the door threshold / door sill area. The surface temperature at Sp2 is cold at 9.7°C despite the side light area here being a fixed panel with no seal to let air through. Sp3 at 15.4°C shows the benefit of triple glazing. The outside air temperature when the photo was taken was about 4°C and the nominal air temperature in the room was 23°C according to the room thermostat. We don’t normally like it to be more than 20°C but it’s the only way to make the rest of the room habitable. When I measured the air temperature around Sp2 it was 14°C. This dropped to around 10°C if the curtains were closed and the air behind the curtain was not mixed with warmer air from the rest of the room. Closeup Of Fixed Panel Side Light Of Draughty French DoorsAs the first salvo in the war was fired, out came the rugs to avoid cold feet as we ponder our strategy to defeat the problem. I should reveal that the French doors have a level access sill, allowing easy entry for those with a disability but making it harder to see the underside compared with a conventional raised door sill. Our first approach is to feel for draughts around the doors. It’s pretty much game over there and then; that was easy. There are clear gaps in the door seals which are letting in cold air. A bit like your letterbox, the keyhole is a small but disproportionately leaky gap in your door that could be letting in unwanted cold air. There are several options for this. A simple round of metal attached with a screw can be added to the outside of the door and pushed to the side when you’re using the key. These are called covered escutcheons and are a common feature of front doors; you possibly already have one.

Glass is the main culprit when it comes to bad thermal efficiency in homes. Lots of doors have glazed panels. If the glass is broken, then it’s important to replace front door glass. Not only is this playing with your home’s energy efficiency, but it’s also a safety risk. Single glazing can be upgraded to more thermally efficient glass – and you don’t have to replace the whole door to do this. Energy efficiency is crucial to the modern home, and by extension the doors around it. There are several reasons for this. To start, building regulations demand that external doors can contain a certain amount of heat in your home. If your French doors open out onto a sufficiently robust conservatory, this might be less of a concern, but for most of us, it is. Another important consequence of having an energy efficient home, however, is that it’ll save you money. The less heat escapes from your property, the less energy you’ll need to spend generating heat to replace it, and the lower your energy bills will be. These products can be bought and fitted yourself, but to do it properly you should either be good at DIY or employ a carpenter who can make sure there are no gaps and the draught is completely excluded,’ says Elizabeth Assaf, Designer and Co-Founder at Urban Front. 3. Add draught strips around the edge of the door To add to my misery when I visit my mum to take pictures of her 1970s Aluminium sliding patio doors I get temperatures similar to my state of the art triple glazed doors. Not a great argument to convince her to change the sliding doors to something more modern and warmer. The glass in our triple glazing does keep a better temperature but the door threshold temperatures looks worse. I abandon the argument and show mum some thermal images of the dogs instead. She seems to like these. It makes me feel better as well.Some of the phrases used by the housebuilder during this dialogue were not ones that those in a sales or customer service environment would normally consider using with an unhappy customer. I will leave it at that. With a bit of creativity, you’ve probably got the materials in your house already to make a draught excluder. You could fashion your own soft cushioned design to put in front of the door – the Energy Saving Trust recommends stuffing a case with used plastic bags, spare bits of fabric or similar material, which will work well as a thermal barrier.

Draught excluders come in a variety of forms, each tailored to different door types and homeowner preference. Here’s a breakdown of the common types: Wooden French doors tend to be more efficient than their uPVC equivalents because the material is much denser. Heat, therefore, has a far more difficult time passing from one side of the material to the other. Insulating External French DoorsIf you’re the owner of an old set of exterior French doors which aren’t quite as energy-efficient as they ought to be, you have two options: Look at the edges of your door, and you’ll see strips of weather-stripping. This is designed to compress when the door is closed, and form a tight seal that’ll keep draughts at bay. Door seals tend to come in the form of either brushes or lengths of rubber. To replace your weather-stripping, it’s best to first remove the old strips and take them down to your local hardware shop. That will make it easy to find a like-for-like replacement. 2. Draught excluders