lots of cold coming in (or heat going out) around the front door area?

vibe666

my front door and hallways are always freezing compared to the rest of the house and as a result it's next to impossible to keep heat in the house for very long.

i've put up thick curtains wall to wall right across the front door area and it's helped a bit, but even with draft excluders (also wall to wall) its still freezing there.

last winter i also tried adding a layer of insulating tape around the edge of the door & the frame on top of where the existing rubber bit was, thinking that maybe there was a gap between the door & frame and that it just didn't reach all the way across the gap and was letting wind in, but that didn't seem to help either.

the only other thing i can think of is that maybe the metal bar across the bottom of the door frame is letting out heat somehow, but i don't even know what to do about that.

here's a few pics anyway in case it helps.



does anyone have any ideas about ways to improve the insulation here?

thanks in advance.

antiskeptic

vibe666 wrote: »

my front door and hallways are always freezing compared to the rest of the house and as a result it's next to impossible to keep heat in the house for very long.

Generally, you need to tackle three areas of the front door

- the letterbox

- the doorframe-to-door seal (2 vertical frame members and the top cross piece)

- the door bottom-to-floor junction.


You can buy/fit draughtproof letterboxes easily enough - although it might be that you'll have to dig to get something suitable for what might be a period style door. Your photos were too small to be really useful.

Chadwicks stock the Exitex range of draught excluders for both door-to-doorframe and across the bottom of the door. This one, for example:


http://www.exitex.com/WeatherBars/PartInfo.aspx?PartRef=1.01.400.&referral=doorsurroundDoorSurround

...deals with the frame and is an excellent way of eradicating all draughts that come in via the door-to-frame route. You have to fit it correctly for it to work but once done, it will last for years and years. They've similar products to deal with the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.

Key to this is precise installation (which isn't that difficult if you're a little handy). If you don't feel your up to it and need someone whose familiar with doing the work, feel free to PM me.

vibe666

thanks antiskeptic (that's possibly my favourite boards.ie username!:D) i think I'll be okay to fit it, it was just knowing what was actually likely to be causing the issue and what to get and where to find it so you've pretty much ticked all my boxes there, so thanks.

i'll nip in tomorrow and get the requisite bits from Chadwicks and once i have them i'll see if i feel like i'm up to the task and if not i'll send you a PM if you don't mind?

i assume you're in the Navan area as you already offered and mentioned Chadwicks?

you don't need any IT work doing do you? being as it's the middle of the recession we could cross barter our services.

antiskeptic

vibe666 wrote: »

thanks antiskeptic (that's possibly my favourite boards.ie username!:D) i think I'll be okay to fit it, it was just knowing what was actually likely to be causing the issue and what to get and where to find it so you've pretty much ticked all my boxes there, so thanks.

i'll nip in tomorrow and get the requisite bits from Chadwicks and once i have them i'll see if i feel like i'm up to the task and if not i'll send you a PM if you don't mind?

If you're at all handy, you'll have no issue with the door frame surround. The bottom-of-door/floor unit is a different proposition depending on how air-tight you want it. You can get a strip of brush which does a pretty good job and doesn't require the door off the hinges or bits cut off the door and so is a straightforward 15 minute fit.


The trick with the door surround strip is to just get contact between the rubber profile and the face of the door and not much more. After cutting to length, rest the profile against the door and push inwards to get say 1mm of compression of the rubber then your about right for where to mount it. Much more compresion and you'll have to slam the door to close it and are in danger of pinching the rubber on the hinge side. There's slotted holes in the aluminium to help fine adjustment. Last tip: the screws are pretty tiny and not very strong so best to pre-drill holes in your door frame after marking them out. Then use properly fitting philps screwdriver.

i assume you're in the Navan area as you already offered and mentioned Chadwicks?

you don't need any IT work doing do you? being as it's the middle of the recession we could cross barter our services.

I'm acutally a bit too far away from you in fact - but you should be able to get a decent result with the the Exitex stuff. But fanks all the same

vibe666

well, i got the top/side bits of the Exitex stuff and a bottom brush bit as well as a brush filled inner for the letterbox and i've fitted the latter two bits to the letterbox and bottom and it's already stopped the whistling noises coming in the door, so i think that was the actually the worst of it so i'm well chuffed already for the help, thanks.

i'm going to do the rest tomorrow as its getting cold now already and i've a few other jobs to get sorted as well (and i'm a bugger for putting things on the long finger! ) but it'll at least allow me to see how effective those two bits are on their own first.

i actually had to mount the bottom brush upside down on the bottom part of the frame rather than on the door itself as there wasn't enough room to mount it on the door bottom without it catching.

it's just braced against the aluminium frame for now with some raw plugs (just what i had to hand and they were a perfect fit) but i'll find something more permanent tomorrow to replace them and maybe a squirt of no more nails too just to be sure.

i'm just curious to see how well it all goes for now.

thanks again.

antiskeptic

vibe666 wrote: »

well, i got the top/side bits of the Exitex stuff and a bottom brush bit as well as a brush filled inner for the letterbox and i've fitted the latter two bits to the letterbox and bottom and it's already stopped the whistling noises coming in the door, so i think that was the actually the worst of it so i'm well chuffed already for the help, thanks.

i'm going to do the rest tomorrow as its getting cold now already and i've a few other jobs to get sorted as well (and i'm a bugger for putting things on the long finger! ) but it'll at least allow me to see how effective those two bits are on their own first.

i actually had to mount the bottom brush upside down on the bottom part of the frame rather than on the door itself as there wasn't enough room to mount it on the door bottom without it catching.

it's just braced against the aluminium frame for now with some raw plugs (just what i had to hand and they were a perfect fit) but i'll find something more permanent tomorrow to replace them and maybe a squirt of no more nails too just to be sure.

i'm just curious to see how well it all goes for now.

thanks again.

Unfortunately, those photos of yours aren't appearing large enough to see what's going on.

That brush-type excluder will tend to cause the door to jam and shudder if:

- it's mounted pressed to tightly against the floor. A light contact (especially near the lock edge, you can go tighter against the floor at the hinge side of the door) is sufficient to prevent the draught and stop it catching.

- the floor rises as you move away from the door. A light floor/brush contact at door closing becomes heavy contact as you open the door. The brush isn't suitable in that case.

A picture might help clarify what you mean although if it can be made work anyway that will last you're in business. I'm just thinking about the durability of an upside down brush in an area people are going to be walking on. as it crushes the gaps will open up again. Still there ain't no motivation like progress.

vibe666

i've re done the pics and uploaded them at full resolution so hopefully you should be able to get a better idea.

there is actually only enough room at the bottom of the door for the brush to fit in one place and in that place it just doesn't work because of the way the lip on the bottom frame sits in relation to everything else.

BUT (hopefully) because the bottom frame is a thin raised bar anyway people will instinctively step over it instead of on it and even if they didn't, they're only going to be treading on the brush tips and would still be supported by the existing ali bar, but the brush head itself (fingers crossed).

it looks like i'll have to remove the (largely useless anyway) existing insulation strips before i fit the new ones, but fingers crossed they're going to do a much better job anyway so they're surplus to requirements in any case and will just get in the way. it's just worrying me slightly as they look like they're original to the door.

i added a pic of the be-brushed letterbox cover for good measure. it actually looks likely wonky in the pic, but it's not visibly wonky when you look at it, so i'm happy enough.

methinks its time to finish it all off now!

ifah

looks like you only have a single leaf wall with no insulation. Is that a more likely cause of the cold ? Cold bridging would be a big problem.

vibe666

well the exitex didn't fit on the handle side of the door frame thanks to a lack of room and a bunch of security locking bolt things that lock in 3 places along the length of the door when you pull the handle up before you lock it.

you can just about make out one of them in the first pic from my first post.



in the end, i just pulled the rubber out of the metal bit and screwed it straight to the frame over the top of the other rubber and that seems to have done the job, altho the door is a little stiffer to close than before, better that than a big draft.

antiskeptic

vibe666 wrote: »

well the exitex didn't fit on the handle side of the door frame thanks to a lack of room and a bunch of security locking bolt things that lock in 3 places along the length of the door when you pull the handle up before you lock it.

I'm not quite sure why the locking system should get in the way. The Exitex mounts onto a part of the frame which is nowhere near the locking mechanism.

in the end, i just pulled the rubber out of the metal bit and screwed it straight to the frame over the top of the other rubber and that seems to have done the job, altho the door is a little stiffer to close than before, better that than a big draft.

But so long as you've had a result!

CBYR1983

Is there a place you can buy rubber seals for pvc doors?

vibe666

if they're fitted you might have some luck if you take a sample to a builders merchants, but you can buy generic foam rubber seals too that just stick on.

even woodies and places like that do them. just make sure you get it thick enough to bridge the gap. blue tack is a good way to measure, just stick a ball on one surface and then close the door/window and open again to see the thickness of the blue tack blob and get something that's a couple of mm deeper than that to account for hot/cold shrinkage.

i bought some D shaped stuff on a 6m roll from Woodies for my windows and it works a treat.