- 39 minutes ago
A candle or a thread of smoke can find winter drafts your hand will miss, and the real leak is often not where you feel the cold. Elias Yoder explains how warm air escapes from the top of a house, pulling cold air in through the bottom, which is why a towel under the door rarely solves the problem.
Drawing on a lesson from his grandfather, he walks through a practical draft-finding method for old houses: start at the attic hatch, then check ceiling lights, chimney openings, pipes, wires, doors, skirting boards, outlets, and window frames. The best conditions are a cold, windy day, with all fires out and extractor fans running to exaggerate the leaks. He also explains where to seal with caulk, weather strip, foam gaskets, and expanding foam, and why a house should never be sealed so tight that it cannot breathe.
This is a home efficiency and winter draft-proofing guide for anyone with an old house, a cold room, or high heating bills. It blends practical house maintenance, energy saving, and traditional hands-on advice into a simple field test you can do yourself.
For viewers searching for draft detector tips, candle trick for drafts, old house insulation, attic hatch air leaks, winter home saving, and DIY energy efficiency, this is a useful guide to finding hidden leaks, stopping heat loss, and making a room feel warmer without turning the heat up.
Drawing on a lesson from his grandfather, he walks through a practical draft-finding method for old houses: start at the attic hatch, then check ceiling lights, chimney openings, pipes, wires, doors, skirting boards, outlets, and window frames. The best conditions are a cold, windy day, with all fires out and extractor fans running to exaggerate the leaks. He also explains where to seal with caulk, weather strip, foam gaskets, and expanding foam, and why a house should never be sealed so tight that it cannot breathe.
This is a home efficiency and winter draft-proofing guide for anyone with an old house, a cold room, or high heating bills. It blends practical house maintenance, energy saving, and traditional hands-on advice into a simple field test you can do yourself.
For viewers searching for draft detector tips, candle trick for drafts, old house insulation, attic hatch air leaks, winter home saving, and DIY energy efficiency, this is a useful guide to finding hidden leaks, stopping heat loss, and making a room feel warmer without turning the heat up.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00You have done the obvious things, and that room is still cold.
00:04You rolled a towel against the bottom of the door.
00:07You bought the long sausage draft stopper.
00:10You felt round the window frame with the back of your hand and found nothing.
00:15And you put your hand along the skirting and found nothing.
00:19And you have concluded that the room is simply cold because the house is old.
00:24It is not.
00:26There is air moving through that room right now, steadily, all day and all night.
00:32And you cannot feel most of it because your hand is not sensitive enough to find it.
00:38But a flame is.
00:40And when you walk a lit flame slowly round the edges of a room,
00:44it will lean and duck and lie over flat in places you would never have guessed.
00:50And you will find in twenty minutes what you have been failing to find with your hand for years.
00:57There is one more thing, and it is the part almost nobody is told.
01:02And it is why the towel under the door never fixed anything.
01:07You have been looking at the wrong end of the house.
01:10I am Elias Yoder.
01:12I farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
01:16We heat with wood, and every stick of it was cut and split by hand.
01:21And a man who carries his own fuel takes a particular interest in where it goes afterwards.
01:27I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
01:33The book is the long version.
01:36If you want it, it is there.
01:37I will not mention it again.
01:40My grandfather taught me this with a candle on a January evening,
01:44and he taught it by walking me upstairs.
01:48I had been complaining about the back room being cold,
01:51and I had stuffed a rag along the bottom of the door,
01:54pleased with myself, and it had made no difference whatever.
01:59He lit a candle and had me carry it.
02:02He stood me at the bottom of that door with the flame down low.
02:06It leaned into the room, hard.
02:10Cold air coming in under the door, just as I had thought,
02:14except the rag had not stopped it because the rag was not tight.
02:19Then he took me up the stairs to the hatch into the attic,
02:23and he had me hold the candle up close to the edge of it.
02:26And the flame leaned the other way,
02:29up and out and into the gap round that hatch.
02:34Same house, same minute.
02:37Two gaps and the air going in opposite directions through them.
02:42He asked me which one was the leak,
02:44and I said the one at the bottom,
02:47because that was the one I could feel.
02:50He said, no.
02:51The one at the top is doing it.
02:53Stop that one, and the one at the bottom stops on its own.
02:58Cold air does not push its way in.
03:02Warm air leaving pulls it in.
03:05Now let me explain that properly,
03:07because it is the whole of this video,
03:09and it is why most people's draft proofing does nothing.
03:14Warm air is lighter than cold air.
03:16It rises.
03:18That is why the upstairs of a house is warmer than the downstairs,
03:22and always has been.
03:24So all day, the warm air in your house is pressing up against the ceiling,
03:29and wherever there is a gap up there, it is leaving.
03:33Round the attic hatch.
03:35Round a ceiling light fitting.
03:37Round the chimney where it goes through.
03:39Where a pipe or a wire passes up through a ceiling into the roof space.
03:45And air cannot leave a house unless the same amount comes back in.
03:50It simply cannot.
03:52So every bit of warm air going out of the top
03:55is pulling an exactly equal amount of cold air in at the bottom,
04:00through the gap under your door and round your skirting,
04:04and through the outlet on the outside wall.
04:06The gaps at the bottom are not the cause.
04:10They are the consequence.
04:12Which means a man who spends a day sealing every gap along the floor
04:17and leaves the attic hatch alone
04:19has blocked the exits and left the engine running.
04:23The suction is still there, and it will find another way in.
04:28Stop the top, and the bottom goes quiet.
04:32Now, before I give you the method, a few words of care,
04:36because this involves carrying fire round your house,
04:40and I am not going to be casual about it.
04:43A candle is the traditional tool, and it works.
04:47But a stick of incense is better and safer.
04:50It gives off a steady thread of smoke you can watch for a foot or more,
04:55rather than a flame you have to read.
04:57And there is no bare flame to put near a curtain.
05:00The old way, and still a good one,
05:03is to light a candle, blow it out,
05:05and use the thread of smoke coming off the wick.
05:08That shows you more than the flame did.
05:11Whichever you use,
05:13keep it well clear of curtains,
05:15net, paper, loose clothing,
05:18and anything hanging.
05:19Do not carry an open flame up a ladder.
05:22Do not do this with a sleeve flapping.
05:25And here is the one that is not negotiable.
05:28Never use a flame anywhere near a gas appliance,
05:33a gas line,
05:34or a place where you suspect a gas leak.
05:37If you can smell gas,
05:39you do not go looking with a candle.
05:42You go outside,
05:43and you telephone somebody.
05:45Now the preparation.
05:46And this is the part that turns a vague walk
05:49into something that actually finds things.
05:52First, pick your day.
05:54The colder it is outside and the windier,
05:57the more there is to see.
05:59A still mild afternoon will show you very little.
06:03A cold, windy evening will show you everything.
06:06Second, and this one matters more than anything else in this video,
06:11put out every fire and turn off every burner before you start.
06:16A wood stove out and cold,
06:19a gas furnace,
06:20a gas water heater,
06:21a gas fire,
06:23all off.
06:24Anything with a flame in it,
06:26off.
06:27The reason is this.
06:29The next step is to turn on the extractor fans
06:32to suck air out of the house on purpose,
06:35which exaggerates every leak
06:38and makes them easy to find.
06:40But a house being sucked at,
06:42with a flue in it,
06:44can pull the fumes back down that flue
06:46and into the room you are standing in.
06:49That is carbon monoxide and you cannot smell it
06:53and I am not prepared to teach a trick that could do that to somebody.
06:57So, fires out first,
07:00every time.
07:01If you are not certain you can turn everything off properly,
07:05do the walk without the fans,
07:07which still works,
07:09just not as plainly.
07:10Third,
07:11shut every outside door and window.
07:14Fourth,
07:15turn on every extractor fan you have.
07:18The bathroom fan.
07:20The cooker hood.
07:21A tumble dryer vent,
07:22if that is all you have.
07:24You are trying to pull a little more air out of that house
07:27than is coming in,
07:29and that makes every gap pull harder.
07:32And there is a free version of the fan step
07:35if you have no extractor at all,
07:37which is how we do it here.
07:39Wind.
07:40A windy day presses on one side of a house
07:43and sucks at the other,
07:44and it does the same job the fans do,
07:47only for nothing.
07:48So, on a blowy evening,
07:50walk the side of the house the wind is hitting first
07:53and then walk the sheltered side
07:56and you will get two different sets of answers
07:58and both of them are true.
08:01Now, take your candle or your incense
08:03and walk.
08:05Slowly.
08:06Hold it four to six inches from the surface you are testing
08:09and move it along at about the pace
08:11you would read a line of writing.
08:13Watch the flame or the smoke,
08:16not the wall,
08:17and go round the top of the house first,
08:19the attic hatch,
08:21all four edges,
08:22the loft door if you have a proper one,
08:25round every ceiling light fitting
08:27and every down lighter,
08:29which are holes straight into the roof space
08:32with a lamp sitting in them,
08:34round the chimney breast
08:35where it passes through the ceiling,
08:37where a pipe or a wire goes up through,
08:40the top edge of an upstairs wall
08:42where it meets the ceiling.
08:44If you have a hatch into the roof
08:46with nothing but a board laid over it,
08:48I can tell you now what the flame will do.
08:51And a word on what you are watching for,
08:53because people expect the flame to blow sideways
08:56and give up when it does not.
08:59Most of what you find is not a gust.
09:02It is a lean.
09:03The flame tilts a few degrees and holds there,
09:06or the smoke thread bends and stays bent.
09:10That steady, small lean is exactly what you are hunting,
09:14because that is a gap that has been working quietly
09:17every hour for 20 years.
09:20The dramatic ones are easy.
09:22The steady ones are where your money has gone.
09:25Then do the bottom,
09:26under the outside doors,
09:28along the skirting boards on outside walls,
09:31where the floor meets the wall in the corners,
09:34through the floorboards themselves,
09:36if the floor is suspended with a space underneath,
09:39round the cellar door and down the cellar stairs,
09:43where the pipes come up through the floor
09:45under the kitchen sink and behind the toilet,
09:48and the electrical outlets and switches on outside walls,
09:52which are open boxes in a hole in your insulation,
09:55and which surprise more people
09:57than anything else on this list.
09:59Then do the middle,
10:01which is the part everybody already suspects,
10:04and which matters least.
10:05The window sashes, where they meet.
10:08Round the window frame, where it meets the wall.
10:11The letter slot.
10:13The keyhole.
10:14The cat flap.
10:15The extractor vent itself.
10:17An old air brick.
10:19Mark everything as you find it.
10:21A bit of tape.
10:22A pencil mark.
10:23A note on a card.
10:24You will not remember eleven places
10:27by the time you come to fix them,
10:29and you will fix four
10:31and wonder why the room is still cold.
10:34One more place worth doing
10:36while you have the candle lit,
10:37and it is not about heat at all.
10:40Hold it at the edge of the door
10:42between the house and an attached garage,
10:44and round any door to a cellar
10:47with a furnace or a stored can of fuel in it.
10:50What comes through there is not just cold.
10:54It is whatever is in that garage.
10:56Those are doors to seal properly
10:59for reasons beyond your bill.
11:01Now, before I tell you what to do
11:04with what you find,
11:05let me say one thing.
11:07Every home has leaks.
11:09Food, heat, water, electricity,
11:13laundry, repairs, and waste.
11:15Inside our Amish home savings system
11:18and community, Esther and I
11:20help you find those leaks
11:22and start fixing them one by one.
11:25The link is in the description.
11:27Now, what to do about each one,
11:30and the order matters.
11:32Do the top first.
11:34Everything I said about the engine
11:36applies to the fixing
11:37as much as to the finding.
11:40An hour spent on the attic hatch
11:42is worth a day spent on skirting boards.
11:45For the hatch itself,
11:46a strip of foam weatherstrip
11:49round the frame
11:50where the board sits down,
11:51and a piece of rigid insulation
11:53glued to the top of the board.
11:55That is an afternoon
11:57and perhaps $15,
11:59and it is the single best thing
12:02most people can do to a house.
12:04For gaps that do not move,
12:06which is most of them,
12:08a tube of caulk.
12:09The joint where skirting meets the floor.
12:12The gap where a pipe passes through.
12:15The crack where a frame meets plaster.
12:18Those parts are not meant to move,
12:21and sealing them is permanent.
12:23For things that do move,
12:25which is doors and opening windows,
12:28you want weatherstrip rather than caulk.
12:31Adhesive foam for the cheap version.
12:34Brush or rubber seal for the better one.
12:36For big holes round pipes and wires
12:40going into a roof space,
12:42expanding foam in a can,
12:44used sparingly,
12:45because that material goes a long way further
12:48than anybody expects,
12:50and makes a great deal of mess.
12:52And for outlets and switches on outside walls,
12:56there are foam gaskets
12:57made to fit behind the cover plate,
13:00and they cost very little.
13:01Turn the power off at the breaker
13:04before you take a cover plate off.
13:07That is not optional either.
13:09And do it in an order
13:11that gives you something to feel for your trouble.
13:14The attic hatch first,
13:16because it is the engine.
13:18Then the biggest holes you found,
13:20wherever they were.
13:22Then the doors you use.
13:24Then the rest,
13:26over whatever weeks it takes.
13:27A man who does the hatch
13:30and two doors on a Saturday
13:31has done most of the good
13:33that is available in that house.
13:35A man who starts at the letterbox
13:37and works up
13:38will give up
13:40before he gets to anything that matters.
13:42Now the plane limits,
13:44and this one is important enough
13:46that I want to put it plainly
13:48rather than at the end.
13:50Do not seal a house up tight.
13:53A house needs air changing in it.
13:56You and your family
13:57put a great deal of water
13:59into that air every day
14:01by breathing and cooking and washing,
14:04and if none of it can get out,
14:06you will have damp and mold
14:08on the cold walls by February.
14:10I have talked about that elsewhere,
14:12and the rule there
14:14is short, hard airing on cold days.
14:17So what you are doing here
14:19is not making a sealed box.
14:21You are stopping the slow,
14:24steady, uncontrolled leaking
14:25that costs you money all winter
14:28and then airing on purpose,
14:30briefly, when you choose to.
14:32Stopped drafts and deliberate airing,
14:36not one or the other.
14:37And if you have anything
14:39in that house that burns,
14:40a wood stove, a gas fire, a boiler,
14:44those appliances need air
14:46to burn properly
14:47and to send their fumes up the flue.
14:50Sealing a room right up
14:52around a burning appliance
14:53is dangerous.
14:55If you have combustion
14:56in the house,
14:57talk to whoever services it
14:59before you make the place
15:01a great deal tighter
15:02than it was.
15:03And do the walk again
15:05when you think you are finished.
15:07Air that was going out of the hatch
15:09has to go somewhere
15:10once you close the hatch,
15:12and you will often find
15:13it has found a new way,
15:15which is not a failure,
15:17it is the engine
15:18looking for another exit.
15:20Two or three passes
15:22over a winter
15:22will get you further
15:24than one thorough day.
15:27Two smaller limits.
15:29This finds air moving,
15:31and it does not find
15:32a cold wall
15:33with no insulation in it,
15:35which is a different problem
15:37that a flame will not show you.
15:39And it will not show you
15:41much at all
15:42on a still mild day,
15:43so wait for the weather.
15:46One last thing,
15:47and it is the reason
15:48this is worth doing at all,
15:50rather than simply
15:51turning the heat up.
15:53A draft does not only
15:55cost you money.
15:56It makes a room feel colder
15:58than the thermometer says,
16:00because moving air
16:01takes warmth off your skin
16:03far faster than still air does.
16:07That is why one person
16:08sits in a room at 68
16:10and is perfectly comfortable,
16:12while another sits
16:13in the same room
16:14in a thin, steady draft
16:16and is cold all evening
16:18and cannot say why.
16:21So stopping these
16:22does two things at once.
16:24It lowers what you burn,
16:26and it lets you be comfortable
16:27at a lower setting,
16:29which lowers it again.
16:31There is no scheme
16:33in any of this,
16:34and nobody arranged anything.
16:37The money simply runs
16:38the other way.
16:40There are companies
16:41that will come
16:42and do this properly,
16:43with a fan in your doorway
16:45and a camera that sees heat,
16:47and they are good at it
16:48and worth the money
16:49on a large house.
16:51It is only that
16:52nobody makes a living
16:53telling you to carry a candle
16:55round your own skirting board
16:57on a windy Tuesday,
16:58so nobody says it,
17:00and a thing nobody
17:01has a reason to say
17:03gets forgotten
17:04inside of one generation.
17:06What got lost
17:08was not a product.
17:09It was an old man
17:11handing a boy a candle
17:13and walking him upstairs
17:14to show him
17:15that the hole he could feel
17:17was not the one
17:18that mattered.
17:20So here is what
17:21I would have you do
17:22this week,
17:23and it costs
17:24nothing at all.
17:25Wait for a cold,
17:27windy evening.
17:28Put out every fire
17:30and turn off
17:31every burner.
17:32Shut the windows
17:34and doors,
17:35turn on your bathroom fan
17:36and your cooker hood,
17:38and light a candle.
17:40Then start at the attic hatch,
17:43not at the front door,
17:45at the hatch.
17:47Hold the flame
17:48close to the edge of it
17:49and watch what it does,
17:51and then go round
17:52the rest of the house
17:53in the order I gave you,
17:55marking everything.
17:57You are going to find places
17:59you would have bet money
18:00were solid.
18:02So tell me in the comments
18:04where you found
18:05the worst one,
18:06because it is almost
18:07never where people expect,
18:09and I would like
18:10to see the list.
18:12And if you have told me
18:13your county before,
18:15tell me this instead.
18:17How old is your house,
18:18and does it have
18:19a hatch into the roof
18:21that is nothing but
18:22a board laid in a hole,
18:24because a great many
18:25of them are?
18:27Next time,
18:28I want to go underneath
18:29the whole thing,
18:31because cold coming up
18:32through a floor
18:33is often telling you
18:35about more than air.
18:37The frame of your house
18:38stands on one piece of timber
18:40at the very bottom
18:42that nobody ever looks at,
18:44and there is a five-minute check
18:46with a screwdriver
18:47and a flashlight
18:48that tells you
18:49whether it is sound
18:50or whether it is
18:51quietly going.
18:53Cold air does not
18:55push its way in.
18:57Warm air leaving
18:58pulls it in.
19:00The people who built
19:02this country
19:03with their hands
19:03knew that,
19:04and we are only
19:06just starting
19:06to remember it.