How to find the draughts making your power bill soar and your home colder

Nothing ruins a warm and cosy feeling in the home like a cool draught but that annoying air isn’t just unpleasant, it’s impacting your power bills too.

Sealing up even just the main places where air is entering and escaping can make a huge difference to your comfort and how often you need to turn on the heater. Getting it sorted now will also help you beat the heat when summer returns.

Draughts are mainly a problem for older homes in Australia, according to CSIRO principal research scientist Michael Ambrose.

The most recent CSIRO tests on new builds show improvements to the amount of air infiltration and leakage compared to a study done more than a decade ago.

But you don't need a study to know some older Australian homes are very draughty.

“Our old homes, we haven’t done any any extensive studies there on the existing stock, but we know when we talk to people in the in the industry that our old homes are very, very leaky by almost any standard in the world,” he tells 9honey Living.

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"You only have to talk to people that are living in [older] homes if you can feel the wind whistling through your home on a windy day, you've got you've got a very leaky home."

Before he launched his own draught-proofing business Draught Fix, Stuart Kent, sealed up the draughts in his home as part of his goal to make his home more energy efficient.

After fixing those gaps he experienced the expected benefits of a more comfortable home temperature-wise and lower power bills, plus a few more.

"With my house, I did the front door, the back door, the laundry door and around the ceiling area, and it made a huge difference... easily the biggest difference of any energy upgrade I've done, by a long, long stretch," he tells 9honey Living. 

“So definitely temperature but then it’s got all these other benefits as well. Sound is huge; we’re not in a super busy area, but wind, weather, passing cars, it made a huge difference to the peace and quiet within the house but it also makes a huge difference with just dust and pollens.”

Where draughts come from

The experts both agree that the main sources of draughts in a home are doors and windows, so if you want to improve the comfort of your home they are the first places to start looking.

Floorboards are another big draught source.

"Particularly when we get an old home what we like to do is rip up all that old carpet and the old lino that was there and polish up those nice floorboards, but there are usually big, big gaps in between those floorboards," Ambrose explains.

"So leakage through the floor because you know the subfloor space is usually not often protected and the wind gets in there and of course it'll whistle through under the home and come up through."

Then there are spots in the ceilings, like duct vents and where evaporative cooling units have been installed. In the walls you can get draughts where a fireplace has been or isn't used anymore.

Beyond that there can be draughts coming from inside a cupboard and around power points and light fixtures.

But looking for every little source of air entering and escaping isn't necessarily worth your time and money to find and fix.

"It can be a journey of trying to really find all these things and eliminate them as an issue, but I think what I find is doing the high reward stuff makes a huge, huge difference," Kent says.

How to find where a draught is coming from

If you can't work out exactly where a draught is coming from there is a trick you can use to locate them in your home.

No special equipment is needed for this method, instead all you'll need is a candle or an incense stick and a windy day.

"It's a great way for finding little wisps of a draft around the window or around particular areas that you can then look for ways to fix," Kent says.

And if it's not windy, Ambrose adds that "It can work in reverse. So if you're running your heating system or your cooling system you can see where the air is escaping your house."

The incense stick will show where the draught is because the smoke will float along with the air entering or escaping the home.

How to stop draughts coming in the home

Sealing up draughts is relatively easy and cheap and both experts recommend them and say they work well.

"[For doors and windows] lots of DIY things that people can do there by putting door seals, window seals on themselves and even those holes in the walls, if they're ones that are in cupboards [putting] cardboard just over the top to block that hole," Ambrose says.

Door snakes or draught stoppers are also effective for doors.

“Typically the biggest heat loss is underneath the door so there are numerous store bought more permanent additions that if you owned your own home, you could add, quite cheaply by yourself, just with a few screws,” Kent says. 

"As a renter, you might not be able to do that and that's where things like door snakes [come in handy]. You can get ones that have a big kind of roll either side of the door, and then a flat bit that sits underneath the door so it'll even move with the door. You can get a great seal with those and they are something you'd bring out for the winter months."

Fixing draughty floorboards can be tricky to find an affordable DIY solution for unfortunately, according to Ambrose.

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"The subfloor one, those leaky floors, that's a little bit more complicated. Certainly if you've got carpet down and things like if you've got a covering that will act as a barrier so that will help," he explains.

While Ambrose confirmed that a rug can assist in blocking a draught from the immediate area, he warned the air will just find another spot to escape instead.

For fireplaces there are chimney balloons and cut foam but you need to make sure there is some way of letting people know or reminding them that a fire can't be lit while the chimney is blocked.

When to call a professional for draughts

Most draughts can be dealt with easily yourself but if you have a home that seems particularly draughty than a professional can help.

Another reason to call a professional is to make more permanent changes than the DIY options, such as door and window seals that you don't need to replace every now and then.

You can also hire a professional to help assist you making the house more energy efficient if you own your own home and want to start making those changes.