Healthy Homes Standards & Draught Stopping Solutions for Comfort

Regardless of whether your property is owner occupied or tenanted it’s important to maintain your windows and doors to ensure a warm, dry and healthy home.

 
 

Comfort and efficiency

Up to 20% of heating can be lost through draughts. Fixing them is a relatively simple and low cost solution to reduce your heating bills and keep your home warm, dry and comfortable.

Gaps, cracks, and small openings around your doors and windows let heat escape, and let cold, damp air in.

By taking a proactive approach and draught-proofing your windows and doors, you can live in a more comfortable home and cut down on your energy usage. 

 

Legal requirements for Landlords

As of 1 July 2021, landlords must ensure that their rental properties comply with the Healthy Homes Standards. There are specific and minimum standards for heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture and drainage, and draught stopping in rental properties.

What does this mean for your windows and doors?

Landlords must make sure there are no unreasonable gaps or holes in walls, ceilings, windows, skylights, floors and doors which cause noticeable draughts. 

Kitchen’s, living and dining rooms and bedrooms must have windows, doors, or a skylight, that can be fixed open and are more than 5% of the floor area and there must be no noticeable draughts throughout the house.

 
 

Draughts & Draught Stopping

One of the simplest steps toward a warm home is to stop draughts and keep the heat inside your home. Draughts are caused by air passing from the outside to the inside, or from the inside to the outside, causing heat loss and uncomfortable breezes when you don’t want them.

Under the Healthy Homes Standards if a door or window has a gap causing a noticeable draught, that draught must be stopped.

How to check for draughts

You should regularly check that all your windows and doors seal tightly. If the catches or friction stays have become loose your windows won’t seal effectively, causing draughts and letting warm air out.

Checking for gaps around door frames: If you can see light shining around a closed door then air will be coming into your home. When this happens we will check to see if your door is hung properly and in alignment.

Check for gaps around windows: Windows have friction stays that hold them in place and keep a tight seal on your window - when these get loose, air can get in. To test their sturdiness place a business card at the top of the window between the frame and the sash and close the window. The card should stay there and be hard to pull out. If the business card falls out, or is easily pulled out, the friction stays are worn and need replacing.

draught Stopping

Our team can happily resolve draughty aluminium windows and doors in your home or property.

Whether you have identified the source of the draught or not, our technicians can find, repair and replace the components of your joinery that is causing the unwanted airflow.

Our services include:

 
 
 
 

Ventilation

Under the Healthy Homes Standards, all habitable rooms in rental property’s must have at least one window, door or skylight which opens to the outside and can be fixed in the open position. This includes the living room, dining room, kitchen and bedrooms. In each room, the size of the openable windows, doors and skylights together must be at least 5% of the floor area of that room.

Our services include: