Intro
Cracks and gaps occur in many places around the house. It’s a good idea to get rid of them as they’ll really increase your heating costs, and in summer they let in hot air and dust. And it’s not only the strong winds of winter forcing air through gaps in your home that will cause draughts. The warm air rising and escaping from a heated room will draw cold air into the room through the openings around doors and windows and even through spaces between joints and floorboards.
Most cracks and gaps, including around skirting boards, architraves and cornices, can be filled with a caulking compound, like an acrylic gap filler. Best to apply with a caulking gun, but caulking compound is also sold in applicator tubes. There’s a wide range of coloured caulking products available at the hardware store; you should find one to match the colour of your paint or timber work. To apply the caulking compound:
1. Hold the applicator at 45 degrees and push it away from you as you run a bead along the gap. This will help force the filler deeper into the gap.
2. As you finish each section, clean up the bead by wiping away the excess; the best tool for this job is a basic one, your finger.
Doors
With doors there are two areas to tackle: the gap at the bottom of the door and the spaces on the sides between the door and the frame. To fix gaps on the sides of a door:
- Get some self-adhesive weather strips, available from most hardware stores. They’re made of rubber, foam or even plastic; choose the one that best suits the size and shape of your door and jamb.
- Make sure the surface you’re sticking it to is properly cleaned and dry before you start, so that the adhesive works best.
- Unroll the weather strips and lay them in the sun for five minutes or so to soften before starting, as this will make them easier to work with.
- Seal the space around the door’s perimeter with the strips by pushing them into the rebate that you are sealing, and trimming off any excess at the corners. In some cases a small frame of timber beading with a rubber seal insert in it can be fitted around the inside of the door jamb.
At the bottom of the door you can use a draught excluder. There are many styles to suit different types of doors and frame constructions. Most of them are easy to fit and usually come in a kit that will include all the hardware and instructions needed. Take careful note of how your door works and all the measurements before heading off to the hardware store.
Window
If your curtains are flapping in the breeze even when the window is shut, or if there’s wind whistling or window-frames rattling on breezy days, then you need to address some window problems:
- Seal most windows with the same weather strip used around doors.
- Sliding and sash windows (and doors) are a little more difficult because the sliding action of the frames will tend to drag on a rubber seal. In new windows these gaps are usually sealed with a brush strip which allows the frame to slide freely (much like a broom over a wooden floor). If you have old sash windows, fitting brush strips is not a difficult exercise as they’re available in adhesive-backed lengths.
- Replacing cracked or broken windowpanes is also really important. For safety reasons this is a job I recommend be left to a professional glazier.
Reducing heat gain through windows
You can reduce your cooling costs by reducing the amount of heat coming into your house through your windows.
One of my least favorite DIY jobs is covering my daughter’s schoolbooks with contact. I wish someone would write a book on how to do this without getting air bubbles in the rotten stuff! Having said this, I’d still recommend installing tinted window films in your house. If you have your car windows tinted then you’ll know how much cooler a car with tinted windows can be—the same goes for your house. There are numerous DIY window film systems, or you can have them professionally installed. Either way you’ll stop between 70 and 80 per cent solar energy coming through the glazing in the form of heat and glare and up to 99 per cent of the UV light that fades your curtains and furniture, without detracting from your view.
To further decrease the amount of heat entering via windows, install awnings or even shutters. Or simply follow in the footsteps of our clever colonial forebears and build a decent verandah!
DIY double glazing
Double glazing is normally a task requiring the complete replacement of windows with new double-glazed units, consisting of two sheets of thermo-efficient glass fitted into a window-frame with a narrow gap between the two sheets. The gap is then filled with an inert gas. This assembly creates an insulating effect to reduce the amount of noise and heat traveling through the window.
It’s possible, however, to achieve a simple DIY double glazing effect on your windows by installing an acrylic panel over the existing windows. You stick a Velcro border around the window-frame, which in turn holds the framed acrylic panel in place, creating an air space between it and the existing window and thereby producing an insulating barrier. There are also commercial versions of this system available.
Although not as effective as full double glazing, these panels are a fraction of the price and ideal if you have historic feature windows, such as lead lighting, you don’t want to replace.