Inexpensive Weather Proofing for Electrical Outlets Insulation, Window Insulation, and Fixing Door Drafts That Will Save You Big Bucks

I month ago on cold, wet and windy night I bent down to plug in a light and felt a breeze of cold air coming form the electrical outlet. I was kind of alarmed, we have heat to warm the house but is it doing any good if cold air is still getting into the house? I was also puzzled because I thought that exterior of the house would shield the house against wind.

I finally decided to do something about it when our next winter power bill came.

If you have space and baseboard heaters, warm air can easily escape from the bottom of your door. With this simple project you can seal in the heat and keep the cold out. This also works great as a noise insulator.

I picked up this backer rod at a local store call Hardware Sales. It comes in various diameters up to 1. If you have a larger gap under your door, you could probably buy pipe insulation foam. Under materials there is a simple calculation to finger out how much material and backer rod you will need to complete this project.

Materials that you will need to complete this project:
+ 5' x 1dia. Backer Rod ( door widths x 2 x #number of doors = _Ft)
+ 11" x 33"  Slippery Fabric ( circumference of foam tube + _ door width x 2) + 1" seam allowance = x # of doors = )
+ Thread to match fabric

Useful Tools:
+ Sewing machine (you could probably hand sew it if you wanted to)
+ Needles to pin material
+ Ruler and Tape measure to measure and cut fabric
+ Scissors
+ Chalk pencil to mark fabric without leaving permanent marks

My door is 30" wide, about 1.5" deep, and I'm using 1"dia. backer rod. After doing the calculation I figured that I needed a piece of material 11" x 33". The three extra inches will give me a 1.5" seam allowance on each side of the backer rod.