What can I do to stop the major draft in this room?

January 20, 2016 3:41 PM

Just moved to a new place. There is a small room that is supposed to be a guest bedroom, but it is absolutely freezing. By far the coldest room in the house.

Not only is it cold, but you can hear the street noise more from this room than any other, even though it's farther from the street than the other rooms are. This tells me that the leakage of cold and sound are probably the same thing- The wall facing the outside probably isn't sealed well. I tried to link photos of the area where the cold is coming from. It's specifically coming from the wall that has the window which has this weird air conditioner/ heater connector vent thing. No heat or cold actually comes from the unit underneath the window, but it makes a buzzing noise whenever we turn on the electric heater which happens to be attached to another wall in the room.

The room is so cold it's almost like being outside. Is there any way to fix this without compromising the heating/air conditioning system? Should I hire someone for this?

posted by rancher to Home & Garden (15 answers total)

You can make a smoke source to do some detailed draft detection-- light a cotton rope on fire, then blow it out. It'll smoke for a little while while you move it around seams of the window, doors, etc., watching for air movement. If you're not seeing it, try blocking off most of the door to your house, except for a box-fan which is blowing air out (i.e. from the cold room to the rest of the house). It'll drop the pressure the room just a little, enough to get the drafts going.

More likely, though, there's an insulation failure. Try closing off the window with styrofoam-- windows a great way to lose heat. You can layer up thin styrofoam boards to fit the geometry of the window glass, muntins, sash, and so on. In the short term, since it's an unusued room, you can glue the layers together into a foam block that you just place in the face of the window like an inside shutter.

If you have an infrared thermometer, the kind for cooking, try surveying the walls every 2-3 feet, in a grid pattern, looking for cold spots. If you find a cold spot, survey in detail around it. Attach a stick (or a skewer, whatever's handy) to the thermometer so you're always measuring from the same distance.

Renting or do you own? If you own it the wall, you can drill a hole in a cold spot and look inside to see what the insulation situation is: what kind, what condition is it in (moldy, wet, missing in action, etc.). How do you look inside the hole? Well, I just found out this week that USB Endoscopes are like $20 on amazon. What a time to be alive, eh?
posted by Sunburnt at 3:58 PM on January 20, 2016 [12 favorites]

This really depends on whether you own the dwelling. I think it's most likely an insulation problem, especially if this room was an add-on or conversion from storage space to living space. You can add blow-in insulation by drilling some access holes, blowing the insulation in and then repairing the drywall. Quick and fairly easy if you hire someone.
posted by quince at 4:19 PM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

If the cold is mostly getting in through the window, you can try the plastic window film stuff. You put it up and then hit it with a blow dryer to shrink/seal it in place.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 4:47 PM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also look underneath and "behind" the window frame itself - if there is a gap from the frame to the wall it can draft like crazy. Then you can buy spray foam insulation o fill the gap.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 5:04 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sounds like my house. The walls feel like ice in the winter. The general consensus amongst contractors is:
- it's the farthest room from the furnace (we have forced air heating)
- it's the northwest corner (something to do with wind exposure)
- it has a flat roof and crap insulation

Having it properly insulated is about $1200 CAD plus re-drywalling/painting, plus we have to be out of the house for 24 hours, so for now we just put an electric space heater in for when my daughter is sleeping, and tried adjusting heating vent baffles to get more warm air in there.

You can get thermal cameras for your smart phone for $250 which can help you source the problem too.
posted by krunk at 6:18 PM on January 20, 2016

Get an energy audit.

They'll have all the professional equipment and they can figure out what's going on and what to do about it.

This is assuming you own instead of rent.
posted by Slinga at 6:32 PM on January 20, 2016 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: To answer- yes I own. And yes the space actually was converted. The room was an add on.
posted by rancher at 7:16 PM on January 20, 2016

Hmm. In re. "Having it properly insulated...plus re-drywalling/painting, plus we have to be out of the house for 24 hours" -- I had insulation blown in last year, and it went in from the outside; they drilled holes in the mortar between the bricks and re-filled it; you can see a slightly different shade of grey if you look very closely, but it's not noticeable if you're not looking for it. Only the basement was insulated from the inside. We were home the entire time. It took two guys two days to do two floors and the top half of the unfinished basement.

As for the window, caulk is your friend, and so are thick curtains. Ikea sells a cheapish curtain rod system that can be made a double or triple rod. If you don't care what the neighbours think, hang thick thrift store blankets on curtain rings with clips behind something nicer (or just straight up blankets if you're not bourgeois enough to demand good looks from every curtain in the house, or inbetween nicer fabrics if you need to keep up appearances).

Dumb question though, are you positive that this room is supposed to be a year-round room? I have an uninsulated 'sunroom' sort of thing that a previous owner used as a bedroom -- when it was warm out. It gets sealed off every fall and re-opened in spring, stays quite useless in winter. Also an add-on.
posted by kmennie at 7:34 PM on January 20, 2016

Get a cover for the ac.
posted by brujita at 8:29 PM on January 20, 2016

You need a contractor or to hire someone I think. It's likely that the room is probably not even insulated at all. You'll need to add insulation to the walls and the ceiling/roof. Often, add-ons don't get insulated or permitted correctly or weren't meant to be year-round rooms. They can also consult about the HVAC/Heat situation. Double-paned windows wouldn't hurt!
posted by Crystalinne at 8:45 PM on January 20, 2016

We used stick incense to detect leaks around windows and doors for caulking. (Burning rope?!? Stinky.)
posted by BlueHorse at 8:56 PM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

When you look at the add-on from the street, was it a garage? Garages have little to no insulation, so when they are converted to living space, the lack of insulation shows up.

Nth-ing the energy audit by your local power company-it helps for both supply and demand.
posted by childofTethys at 8:58 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

@kmennie yeah, my house is 100 years old with double brick walls. We investigated getting AirKrete blown into the moisture gap but were told not to, and instead have interior insulation added. It takes 24 hours to cure and we were told we had to be out of the house while that occurred.
posted by krunk at 6:12 AM on January 21, 2016

The room was an add on.

What is UNDER the room? Basement below? Or just the cold, dirt ground?

Our kitchen was added on. Coldest room in the house by far, but closest to the furnace. There is no warm (relatively) basement under the kitchen. It's just the frozen ground and very little, cheap insulation under the floor. So, it's super cold. Some day we will rip up the floor, dig a pocket for warm air from the rest of the basement to make its way under it, and re-insulate before putting the floor back in.
posted by TinWhistle at 6:34 AM on January 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

I agree with Ruthless bunny about the window film that you tape on and then shrink with a hair dryer. Besides reducing draft from the window, the cushion of air really reduces street noise. And it looks surprisingly not-bad.
posted by wryly at 2:37 PM on January 21, 2016