DIY Easy Draught Excluder
Updated on June 25, 2021
I don’t know about your location and climate this period, I’m a diyer from sunny Italy and temperatures are still quite rigid in March. And if you, like myself, live or have lived in an historical building know more than anyone how old windows can be totally dispersive in terms of heat isolation. And this means unpleasant cold draughts and heating costs tremendously increased! The aim of this tutorial is to create a nice decor element that is capable of reducing this draught from peeking in your warm place, which is basically a narrow stuffed cushion that covers the lower edge of windows and doors. Also, if you have an air conditioning system for summer the draught excluder can be used to prevent cold air from your system to escape the room, so it’s a super useful element!
Before we start, I recommend you check having enough stuffing for the whole length of the window because I assure you’re going to need a lot! Just to make you understand: for my 80 cm window I used 4-5 times the amount of stuffing you see in the picture below. Told you it was a whole lot of material!
Supplies:
- textile of your choice
- pins
- needle and matching thread
- sewing machine
- scissors
- stuffing.
1. Cut a rectangular shape from your textile the length of your window + 4 cm and height 40 cm.
2. Bend the textile halfway through the long end, making the wrong part (the back of the textile) show upwards. Pin it in place.
3. Sew all the way through the length trying to stay near the edge. You should have a wrong-way-round roll with two open ends.
4. Sew one end, still on the wrong side.
5. Turn the right side out by pushing your arm inside the tube, grabbing the bottom and pulling it out.
6. Fill with stuffing. I used pre-formed foam which I cut into thousands of small pieces. This step is going to take you a while since you have to push down the stuffing so that it fills up properly the whole draught excluder.
7. Close the hole by bending the textile like shown in the picture and sew. Then, bend it once again in the same direction to hide the peeking edge and hand sew just the edges, trying your best to hide the stitches.
Place under the window or below the door and you’re done! Warm and stylish.
