Stop Drafty Doors

We have two exterior doors in our home, and both had small openings even when the doors close shut. This was annoying – I literally could see sunshine coming through when I walked by. But, I also knew it meant cold air was flowing into the house during the winter, making our first floor temperature lower and our heating bill higher. This is all past tense, as I was able to remedy the problem very quickly, and very inexpensively. I was in my home improvement store and came across “4 Corner Seals”. It’s like they were thinking of me! Clearly this is a common problem, but also an easily correctable one.

Stop Drafty Doors Home Project

1. Locate the problem area. On this door, as with another of our exterior doors, there was space at the bottom where the door frame and door meet when closed. This is the daylight I mentioned. The problem could be on any of the four corners of a door so check and see if there are any other corners needing to be sealed.

2. Purchase “4 Corner Seals” at your local home improvement store. Frost King is a very common brand for residential insulation. They come four to a pack – clever I know. Depending on how many you need, you may want to get multiple packs. They are simple insulation wedges with a built-in sticky side to them. The wedge shape allows the door to close while creating a firm seal.

3. Clean the door frame and door where you will be adhering the seals. This helps ensure a more lasting stick from the seal.

And then after my cleaning job. With a good cleaning solution (and my massive biceps), I even ended up taking off some of the paint. So don’t go too crazy with it.

4. Dry-fit the insulation corners before securing to the door frame. Make sure you have the wedge going in the correct direction, and that the bottom of it is direct contact with the threshold. As shown, the thinner end of the wedge should be facing the door, so the seal gets tighter as the door closes against the frame.

5. Raise the surface temperature for better adhesion if it is cold out. Typically for adhesives, the temperature needs to be about 40 degrees. If you are doing this in the winter, this is a good step to help with the adhesion. I used Mrs. T’s blow dryer – which she was thrilled about – to warm the door surface up before making the final placement of the seal.

6. Secure the seal(s) on the door frame. Add more “corners” as needed to get an air tight seal. In this door’s case, the gap was wide enough, that I used two on the door frame and then one on the door itself – facing the opposite way so the wedges aligned together.

7. Close the door to ensure you no longer see any gap. I left my door shut for about an hour so that the pressure created by door frame and door on the seals further helped secure them in place.