DIY Draught Excluder
We have all been doing what we can to help lower our energy and fuel consumption amidst the current price hikes. So many of us are feeling the pinch, me included! When my son is staying at his dad’s house, I don’t put the fire on, it’s extra layers and snuggles with a super long hot water bottle. However, when my house is cozy, it’s super cozy, but I really noticed over the last month or so that there are so many draughts including the windows but with the worst of them coming from the front door and the back door.
This week I had really had enough of them and decided to take some action! I have been chatting a lot with community councils over the last couple of months and with several of them we had conversations discussing how we could help communities save money on their energy bills. One idea that arose several times was to run different workshops including one on how to make your own draught excluder. So, with this in mind I decided to do just that. Now I can be very crafty when I need to be, I have enough skills to sew back on a button or two – but that’s pretty much where my sewing skills stop, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.
I wanted to approach this with a full climate action outlook. I had some of my son’s clothes that were too small, but weren’t good enough to pass on or put to charity, so I decided that I would use them to make my excluder and prevent them from going to landfill where according to WRAP around £140 million pounds worth of clothes end up each year in the UK. It also meant that I didn’t have to spend any money on materials. I also had a bag full of those annoying little foam balls from a beanbag that had burst, so once I hunted out my needle, thread and some pearl headed pins from my floristry toolbox I was good to go!
The items of clothing that weren’t good enough to pass on or donate.
I started by cutting the clothing into large rectangular sections, not worrying too much about them all being equal, I’d work on that later. Once I had my sections, I pinned to pieces together at the short edge with the good side of the fabric faced together, Cut the fabric straight and then would sew along the edge to secure them together and then repeated with another section. I made two sides, each one three sections long. I then lay it across the front door and cut the length so the draft excluder was just a little longer than the door frame to allow for a centimeter on each side when I sewed up the final edges.
First two sections joined together.
It was then time to bring the two sides together, so with the good sides of the fabric facing each other, I pinned the top long sides together and began by sewing along that edge, then the other long edge and stopped, I have to leave one edge open for filling! At this point the draught excluder was inside out, so once I reversed it, it was time to fill it. Well, I think I spent more time hoovering up those foam balls after than it took me to make the whole draught excluder. They kept appearing everywhere, but the cats seemed to have fun chasing them about the place – spreading them out more!
Getting there! Both sides now sewn together.
Once it was as full as I could get it, I then finished by sewing up the open edge making sure that all the corners were tightly sewn up. Voila!! One homemade draught excluder that didn’t cost me a penny to make but will help save me money, help save on heating and it saved textiles from ending up in landfill! Is it the nicest looking piece? No! It has wobbly lines and isn't completely straight – but it does the job.
Voila! One wonky but effective draught excluder!
It’s small things like this that we can do ourselves, for our communities, that not only help our own situations in these difficult times, but also help lower our carbon footprints as well. Imagine as a community group, coming together for a couple of hours a week, getting together, reducing isolation, making friends, learning new skills AND being able to help you reduce costs and save the planet at the same time? Sounds like a win win to me!