From investing in the best electric blanket to pre-warming beds with a hot water bottle, many of us are looking for cost-effective solutions to stay warm this winter without cranking up the central heating. With energy bills remaining high, when you do turn up the thermostat, the last thing you need is for all that precious heat to escape. Fitting the best draught excluders throughout your house can keep your home warmer and prevent cold air from getting in through doors, chimneys, windows and even the gaps in your floorboards. You could also hang a pair of thermal curtains, which will make a big difference, particularly if your front door opens straight into your living area. Cold may also come in through gaps around the edges of your door so you may need to fill them with foam or a seal, or also consider purchasing a letterbox draught excluder too. Finally, if you really want to go all out, you can get a keyhole cover such as this STORMGUARD one. These are metal discs designed to drop over the hole and keep out the cold. A well-fitting draught excluder is the easiest and cheapest way to stop draughts coming through your doors. Tim is an expert in sustainable building methods and energy efficiency in residential homes and writes on the subject for magazines and national newspapers. He is the author of The Sustainable Building Bible, Simply Sustainable Homes and Anaerobic Digestion - Making Biogas - Making Energy: The Earthscan Expert Guide. The right draught excluder for you will depend on your needs - specifically the source of your draught and the type of heat loss you are experiencing. Here are some things to consider when making your choice:

Floorboard Gap Filler DraughtEx - Floorboard Gap Filler

A 12 x 12ft room has approximately 25 floorboards and an average gap area of 3.87ft which is similar to a small window being left open. The good news is that StopGap is flexible and adapts to changes in the temperature and humidity of your home, keeping the draughts at bay all year round. The unique shape means that the floorboard gaps remain completely sealed, whether it’s a humid summer or a dry winter. Easy to install with the free applicator, DraughtEx requires no adhesives and compliments the overall finish of your floorboards. The specially formulated colour “Shadow” has been designed to mimic the natural shadows created between floorboards and is almost invisible to the naked eye. Draughtex Floor and skirting board filler is a proven floorboard gap filler, designed to eliminate the cold draughts and improve the comfort and energy efficiency of your home.After searching locally and online, I found that none of the existing solutions were up to the job. The DIY options were messy and time-consuming, and the commercial products used permanent adhesives or sealants. Inspired, I started developing StopGap until I created a product good enough for my own home. Thereafter, the movement of people around the house, moving in and out, and naturally opening and closing windows and doors will deal with other ventilation needs. In an average sized room there are up to 50 metres of floorboards. This means up to 100 metres of gaps, which can be as wide as 8mm. Add all these tiny gaps together and you could find that the spaces between your floorboards add up to the size of an open window. Even in carpeted rooms, the gaps underneath the skirting boards can add up to a significant heat loss.

Draught Proofing: 11 Ways to Eliminate Draughts | Homebuilding Draught Proofing: 11 Ways to Eliminate Draughts | Homebuilding

The very nature of wooden floors amplifies the problem. Changes in temperature and humidity cause your floorboards to expand and contract – and with them the gaps. Throughout the winter your central heating will be running and keeping the house warm and dry, keeping your floorboards free of moisture. During this time the floorboards will be at their smallest, meaning that the gaps between them will be at their largest. This, in turn, means more draughts and higher heating bills through the coldest months of the year. A flexible seal The foam strips work around windows and doors that are in use, and the brush-type strips are good for the bottom of doors. Fillers are suitable for around pipes and electrical fittings, and possibly loft hatches, depending on the size of the gaps. Fillers can be used for floorboards and skirting boards but won’t last forever due to the movement of the boards, ans can be messy and time-consuming to use for this purpose.

Should I draught-proof every room?

It’s not advisable to sand original old floorboards. Apart from destroying the patina, the surface can be destabilised – for example wood-boring beetle larvae may have been busy tunnelling below the surface and if you take off the top layer the unsightly, worm-ridden wood will be on view. When you feel a draught coming from under the door you use a draught excluder. When there’s a cold breeze coming through an open window, you close it. Using StopGap to stop the cold air coming through the gaps in your draughty floorboards is the obvious next step. Chimney draught excluder - These large draught excluders are used to insulate your chimney breast when your fire is not in use, effectively sealing a large source of heat loss whilst reducing audible wind noise too.