With the onset of winter, making sure your front door is up to the task of withstanding the months of rain, wind and even a bit of snow can not only help save money on your heating bills but can help ensure a lovely warm environment to come home to.

Check out our five step guide to weatherproofing your front door:

1. Protect with paint or varnish

   If your door is in need of a lick of paint, be sure to get one ready for the task. Many of the most well known brands of paint have a range of weatherproof paints with six to 10-year weather protection guarantee.

   If you’re painting a fresh door for the first time, make sure it’s primed, undercoated and top-coated. If you’re adding an extra layer onto an existing painted door, make sure you’ve given it a good clean and sanding before you start.

   If you have a natural hardwood door and you don’t want to add a layer of paint, oils and varnishes are a good alternative. They’ll protect against the weather and also enhance the door’s natural character. Again, make sure anything you buy is specifically for exteriors.

   Next step? Deal with those pesky draughts…

2. Get a door draught excluder

   Walls can warp over time and when that happens it can alter how your door sits in the doorframe, leaving room for the cold winter draughts to find their way in, meaning your boiler has to work harder to heat your home.

   A good way to locate potential draughts is to look at your door at night from the outside to see whether there’s any light shining through. If you see any light then that’s where the draughts will be coming in from.

   Look at your door from the outside at night, if you can see light shining through, you may need a draught excluder

   A draught excluder is a quick, simple, affordable fix to block any breeze coming through.

3. Shore it up with a door threshold

   Door thresholds are a more heavy-duty option for draught-proofing your front door as they block out rainwater as well. Generally they’re made of metal and if you’re having real problems with wind and rain creeping in, they’re a really reliable solution.

4. Take a look at your letterbox

   Another place that might be prone to draughts is your letterbox. Again, any draughts coming through can put increased load on your heating. If you think you’re losing heat there, for example if your letterbox clangs when it's particularly windy outside you will need to address this. Fortunately, it’s fairly straightforward to fix with a letterbox draught excluder.

   A letterbox draught excluder a metal plate that goes on the inside of the letterbox with bristles at the top and bottom of the frame which block draughts but allow letters to come through as normal.

5. Add a weatherstrip to the opening

   Weatherstrips are a really easy way of sealing up your door and weatherproofing your home. A weatherstrip is a strip of material that can be cut to size so it fits snugly in your doorframe. They tend to be made of rubber or foam and start from around £5 for 10 metres in most hardware stores.

Weatherproofing your door is a really satisfying job. And with less heat escaping, it can help save on your energy bill too.

Here if you need help

If you’re comfortable doing all of this yourself, go ahead! If not, there’s always a Local Heroes Painter and Decorator – or a Local Heroes handyman – ready to step up and get it sorted.