The DIY Energy Efficient Home Project Magazine By EcoMaster

ENTRANCE
Draught Proofing
The Front Door
This is our front door. Because this is the ecoMaster test
house, this door has over the years had lots of different
treatments; door perimeter seals and door bottom
treatments. We have learnt lots about things that don’t work
and how to design things that do work.
as thorough as the draught-proofing that we would do today.
Nonetheless, it reduced our heating bill by 50% just doing
that. So, doing this kind of work has real dividends behind it.
Entrance Landing
In the entrance down into our living room, there’s a couple of
steps. When we first came here, there were a few little steps
with really sharp edges, making it a little tricky to navigate. One
of the things that we did was to make this a larger entrance.
The platform is made from bamboo. We chose bamboo for
two reasons. One is it looks great, but also it’s a reasonably
sustainable material to use and we’re really happy with the way
it’s turned out.
One of the things that we were concerned about with making
this kind of structure, is the amount of noise that it might
generate from just walking across it. For that reason, we
actually filled it underneath with acoustic blanket and so it
hasn’t been an issue.
For example, originally for the perimeter seals, we started
with typical weather stripping but soon found that to be not
very satisfactory. We tried other seals, including ones that
had bulb seals on them which had some promise, but there
are issues with bulb seals particularly getting jammed in
the hinge side of the door. This led to the development of
Draught Dodgers, which you see on these doors at
the moment.
We came to use this bottom treatment (RP35), which, in
all the years that we have installed this device in various
places, have not had one failure. We’ve hit upon a formula
that’s really good. Our initial draught-proofing was not
very thorough. It didn’t involve the doors - just a little bit of
caulking and treating the light fittings. It was by no means
See our Product Feature for Draught
Dodgers for Doors + RP35
https://ecomasterstore.com.au/collections/
perimeter-seals/products/draughtdodgers-for-doors
https://ecomasterstore.com.au/collections/
draught-proofing-door-bottom-draught-excluder/
products/door-draught-proofing-rp3-automaticdrop-down-draught-excluder
LOUNGE / DINING ROOM
Introduction
Our family room is quite a big space, with a living area on one side, a
dining area on the other, a kitchen, and a great big cathedral ceiling.
It is a big space, and there’s quite a lot happening here to talk about.
There’s a drying rack, a ceiling fan, the lighting upgrade, an acoustic
upgrade and there’s also hot water heating happening here. And
there’s the heating systems themselves. There is quite a lot of
draught-proofing to talk about. And of course, there’s a ceiling and
underfloor installation as well. So, let’s make a start.
Air Lock
Draught-proofing a front door is one thing, but when people
are coming and going, if this is your main heated area,
you’re definitely losing a lot of heat every time the door
opens. And of course, if you’ve got kids you can expect the
door to be left open. That’s just a fact of life. To take energy
efficiency to the next level, an airlock is a great idea so
you can certainly come and go without losing a lot of your
winter heating.
Draught Proofing
The journey really started with draught-proofing. In the living room,
it turned out that there were a lot of draughts. We didn’t really think
that it was a draughty place, but when you look carefully, there
was quite a lot to do. Because this is a cathedral ceiling, there are
loads of gaps where the rafters meet the wall, where the rafters
meet the external wall, the architraves around the glazing, but
also the aluminium sliding doors were not very good. As well as
that, of course, the external hinge doors and the awning windows
were also draughty. So all those have been treated. And initially
we didn’t do it all, but in the first year we actually saved 50% of our
heating just by doing the draught-proofing.
See our Product Feature Section for
Draught Proofing - Ultraclear
https://ecomasterstore.com.au/products/
draughtproofing-gaps-fullers-ultraclear
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