So, when we moved it was getting cold, but it wasn’t really cold. About two weeks in though the temperature started to really drop, and we found that the kitchen got really rather…chilly.
Something had to be done. Our first order of business was reducing draughts, and they were everywhere. I don’t know how the previous owners coped. First, the hole where their tumble dryer outlet was had to be blocked, we’re not getting one any time soon.
I rammed some polystyrene packaging in there, then filled around it with polyfiller. One howling gale sorted. Next was the space around the waste pipes. By now I had ordered some expanding foam, so they were the next to go (washing machine and dishwasher).
I think there’s another one for the sink, but we are yet to get through the back of that cupboard. While doing this we also removed the dishwasher as we decided it was a lost cause and not to be rescued.
Ew Some cleaning to do…
We bought some of those squishy sealing strips for all the doors and windows, and so far have installed them in all the living room windows, and the back door (leakiest bucket of them all).
Some more research later we discovered window film, and way of giving yourself temporary secondary double glazing. So we bought some from Wickes (they know us by site at this point) and installed it on the back door and the kitchen windows. We intend to do the living room too!
Peeling the tape Hair dryering it taught All shiny And these windows too
You simply apply double sided tape around the pane, stick on the film as flat as you can manage, then heat it up with a hair dryer to iron out the wrinkles and pull it all taught. Once done you honestly forget it’s there.
Then, curtains. One for the back door, and some for the living room. We made sure to buy curtains with thermal linings to aid our draught proofing efforts. We need all the heat we can get.
We ordered these wrong the first time, but found our mistake was to our benefit, and the ones we thought would fit the big living room window fitted the small one. We then ordered the big ones again, but to the wrong Dunelm, so we ordered again and the third time was the charm. Now waiting on two seperate refunds…
Put up the curtain rail and a long curtain Much better Living room big window And the small one All finished
We also tried to fix the living room radiator by bleeding it dry, but all we managed was to make it spurt some murky water and for the top bar to get kinda warm. Probably full of sludge. Someone from British Gas is visiting on the 8th to advise on the heating situation, which is a whole other story…
Next thing was the sill under the big window in the kitchen was loose and you could feel a huge breeze underneath it. It was time to yank it off. We then immediately decided we couldn’t face doing anything that evening, put it back and made a temporary test seal with clingfilm and masking tape.
This resulted in this bulging indicator of why we needed to fix it! After a lot of online research we had a go.
The main issue was that it had been haphazardly fixed over the wall cavity without any real support from the outer leaf. It had also been terribly fixed down with either a grab adhesive or possibly just ordinary silicone caulking. Clearly this had not worked, and was full of gaps.
There was quite a bit of umming and ahring and wondering what we needed to buy to do this, until we decided to reuse the bits of plywood that had been under it, and screwed them down into the brick.
After this they were actually pretty firm, and we decided to go ahead and stick down the uPVC sill. I had found that it is possible to use the expanding foam for this, and I thought that would be ideal as it would both stick it down, and fill all the gaps underneath too. This would both support it and stop the drafts!
And it worked! Sure it goes up by almost an inch on the left hand side, but so did the brickwork, so not our fault. It’s stuck hard as nails now, and so I ran my sealant around the edge.
I was rather pleased with how that went! And we were done with that window. There’s not a single bit of draught coming in under it now, and the tiles are noticably warmer there than under the other window. That one will need doing next…
And that’s it for our current insulation saga. Stay tuned for more whacky ways to seal this sieve we call our home.
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