How to Weatherstrip a Door

Weatherstripping, or attaching seals around an entryway door to fill in the gaps, is essential to maintaining the energy efficiency of your home in the winter (keeping the chilly air out) and in the summer (keeping the air conditioning in). Consider that even a tiny 1/8-inch gap around a typical entryway door is equivalent to having a 5 ½-inch-diameter hole on an outside wall. Closing that gap can go a long way in lowering your energy bill.

A well-sealed door requires two components: weatherstripping the sides and top to fill in the space between the door and the jamb, and adding a sweep to the bottom to fill in the space between the door and the threshold. You can find an array of metal, foam, felt, and plastic products on the market for this purpose, but we recommend a tubular silicone weatherstripping that fits against the doorstop and a twin-fin silicone sweep that fits beneath the door. Silicone is the ideal weatherstripping material because it’s durable, soft, and has no compression memory—it remains tight as the door swells and shrinks with the temperature.

If there’s old, worn weatherstripping around the doorframe, use a flat pry bar to remove it. Then, with the door closed, measure the gap between the door and jamb and the door and stop. Take measurements along both side jambs and the head jamb, then choose weatherstripping for each side that’s big enough to fill the largest gap along its run.

Read more: How to Weatherstrip a Door