Inexpensive Weather Proofing for Electrical Outlets Insulation, Window Insulation, and Fixing Door Drafts That Will Save You Big Bucks

Intro: Inexpensive Weather Proofing for Electrical Outlets Insulation, Window Insulation, and Fixing Door Drafts That Will Save You Big Bucks

I month ago on cold, wet and windy night I bent down to plug in a light and felt a breeze of cold air coming form the electrical outlet. I was kind of alarmed, we have heat to warm the house but is it doing any good if cold air is still getting into the house? I was also puzzled because I thought that exterior of the house would shield the house against wind.

I finally decided to do something about it when our next winter power bill came.

STEP 1: Electrical Outlet Insulation Materials

STEP 2: Window Insulation Materials

STEP 3: Door Draft Materials

If you have space and baseboard heaters, warm air can easily escape from the bottom of your door. With this simple project you can seal in the heat and keep the cold out. This also works great as a noise insulator.

I picked up this backer rod at a local store call Hardware Sales. It comes in various diameters up to 1. If you have a larger gap under your door, you could probably buy pipe insulation foam. Under materials there is a simple calculation to finger out how much material and backer rod you will need to complete this project.

Materials that you will need to complete this project:
+ 5' x 1dia. Backer Rod ( door widths x 2 x #number of doors = _Ft)
+ 11" x 33"  Slippery Fabric ( circumference of foam tube + _ door width x 2) + 1" seam allowance = x # of doors = )
+ Thread to match fabric

Useful Tools:
+ Sewing machine (you could probably hand sew it if you wanted to)
+ Needles to pin material
+ Ruler and Tape measure to measure and cut fabric
+ Scissors
+ Chalk pencil to mark fabric without leaving permanent marks

STEP 4: Door Draft Construction

My door is 30" wide, about 1.5" deep, and I'm using 1"dia. backer rod. After doing the calculation I figured that I needed a piece of material 11" x 33". The three extra inches will give me a 1.5" seam allowance on each side of the backer rod.

Comments

[budget_audiophile]

Great ideas. Quick note however, pink Fiberglass insulation is not recommended to be used directly beside electrical outlets, it is actually flammable and a fire hazard. You can use Roxul or other brand Mineral Rock insulation which is flame-retardant.

[joyalove]

 They sell something like what you made for the door bottom for about $10, so I understand your design without words. I will not be throwing away any more money. Thanks to your easy plans

[MsJan]

I bought mine at Bed Bath & Beyond a few years back

[PLANTJOE]

Good Ideas. But lots of seeming drafty windows are just air being cooled by contact with icy glass and then falling to the floor. The attached LINK showh how to put styrofoam onto the stationary half of a sliding-door.
I also cut squares of foam to squeeze into the frames around individual panes of glass in windows.
The styrofoam dosen't have to be very thick. If it won't stay in by compression, You can put a 1 in. piece of 2-sided tape in the dead-center.

SLIDING-DOOR

[shawnlogan]

Nice ideas, and fairly good equipment and parts lists. However, I agree with other comments; expanded instructions are needed.

[Pasketti]

The pictures are good, but you really need to fill in the details. What do you do with all those materials?

[mistressdominastar]

Not very helpful for an instructable, aren't there usually instructions to tell you how to do that?

[dosadi]

What are the materials in step 3?