Make a draught excluder from old jeans

As we move into winter, and with increasing energy costs, you might be thinking about how to make your home more cosy and save some money on heating. One way you might do this is to use draught excluders at the bottom of draughty doors (or windows). Your can of course buy one. Or you can make a one out of an old pair of jeans, any thick trousers such as corduroy or leftover fabric. Here’s how.

Method: To make your draught excluder ‘sleeve’.

• Cut the jeans/fabric into a rectangle about 35- 40 cm wide X the width of the door (or window) plus 5 cm (the average UK door is around 76 cm. If your door is that size, you cut the fabric 81 cm). But your door may be bigger or smaller.
• Fold the fabric in half lengthways, with the right sides together, and pin. Sew along the long edge, leaving a seam allowance of about 1 cm. Leave the two ends open. Turn the ‘sleeve’ out through one of the open ends, so that it now has the ‘right side’ on the outside.

Stuffing: Your need a fabric ‘sausage’ the same length as the door to fill the ‘sleeve’, you can use for example, things around the house:

• Old towels or clothes. Roll them into sausage shape.
• Old pillows, cut in half and stuffed into it.
• Fabric scraps or toy stuffing stuffed inside an old pair of tights.

Make sure the sausage is fat enough to fill the ‘sleeve’, without over stuffing it. If your stuffing material is very light, add something with a bit of weight so that the draught doesn’t blow it away from the door.

Finishing. Pull the ‘sausage’ through one of the open ends to fill the sleeve.

There are a few ways that you can secure the ends.

• Simply sew them shut, leaving the raw edges showing.
• Fold the raw edge in, and sew the ends shut
• Use a piece of string, ribbon or wool to tie the ends shut (if plan to do this, we recommend making the ‘sleeve’ about 10 cm longer than the finished draught excluder).

If you want, you can add embellishments – letters, buttons, pom poms – to jazz it up.

Your draught excluder is complete.

Ealing Repair cafe will be showing how to make denim draft excluders on Saturday 4 November at Acton Reduce and Recycle Hub and other events. Please see all our events listings.

Examples of jean draft excluders made at Portabello market at a Traid upcycling workshop.

TRAID is a charity working to stop clothes from being thrown away. They turn clothes waste into funds and resources to reduce the environmental and social impacts of our clothes. Traid also runs regular workshops around London, see events page for more detail.