Draughts allow cold air to enter your house and warm air to exit so you are more likely to leave the heating on and turn up the thermostat. Draught-proofing is a very simple and low-cost solution for immediate reductions in energy use and fuel bills and also increases your home comfort. Comprehensive draught-proofing around windows and doors, including letter-boxes and key-holes, chimneys, loft-hatches and other gaps can reduce heating bills by 20%. The strips are easy to apply and the materials long-lasting and unobtrusive. You can also install a DIY version of magnaglaze secondary glazing at relatively low-cost using acrylic or polycarbonate sheets with metal and magnetic strips. This improves the insulating capacity of windows if you are not able to get full window-replacement double-glazing fitted. The panels can also be removed over summer months.
We run regular free DIY draught-busting workshops with a team of volunteers. These are informal and social over a couple of hours and are usually held in a host home. The workshop includes:
- Demonstration of installation of easy to use draught-excluding materials for wood-framed windows and doors
- Demonstration of DIY version of magnaglaze secondary glazing
- Hands-on practice using the materials – only very basic DIY skills are required
- Exploring and sharing ideas on other no-cost and low-cost energy saving around the home
En10ergy also keeps a stock of draught-proofing materials to purchase at a reduced price – see order form below. Please contact kate@mhsgroup.org or 07798 835738 to order materials.
Secondary_Glazing_using_Acrylic
En10ergy Order Form Draught proofing
We always need more volunteers to help run the workshops to help teach others how to use the materials – only basic DIY skills are needed and training and a reward voucher for your time will be provided. If you are interested in teaching others then please get in touch so we can cascade the workshops to a larger audience.
Watch a short film demonstrating draught-proofing here.
