Yes, the title is overdone but, it is a fact that winter is indeed coming. In the panhandle of Florida we do not experience a rough winter. Things do get a little drafty and we notice more when we get the lower temps or the occasional frost.
When is the last time you took a look at the weather stripping on your door? The front door to your house is the most used point of entry unless you sneak in from the back. That is an entire new topic.
Over time, the seal around the door gets compressed, scratched by your animals or just gets old. During my rounds as operations manager for tropicpc.com , I replace a lot of weather strips. I also encounter tons of terrible do it yourself attempts by tenants. Most modern doors, like less than 30 years old, have a slit built in behind the weather stripping so that you can replace it. These doors were designed to last decades but the weather strips were not so, they made it really easy.
This simple strip is available at any hardware store. You simply remove the old, measure and cut the new. Installation takes less than a minute.
The main reason you want to do this is compression. Your door compresses the strip every time it closes.
There is a very simple way to see if you need a new set of weather stripping. with your door closed during the daytime, make your place as dark as possible. Look at your door from the inside. If you can see light along the edges, then you likely need to replace your door strips.
There are several colors and variations of strips including magnetic. Most of us just need this common one shown below.
The ridges on the bottom hold the strip in the slot along the door opening. be sure to match the direction your original was installed in.
This is just one option. There is also the bottom door sweep that will be in a future discussion.
I hope this home tip helped out. Perhaps I will do a little video the next time I need to replace some.