Your Door Snake Is Trying Its Best. Bless It. 

Your Door Snake Is Trying Its Best. Bless It.

Door snakes are the comfort food of draught proofing.  Soft. Familiar. Usually a bit lumpy. Often found lying across the bottom of a door looking very pleased with itself.

And honestly, who hasn’t had one at some stage?

We have had door snakes. I suspect most Australian houses have had at least one door snake at some point. They tend to appear in winter, full of promise, like a little fabric sausage sent to save the household from the cold.

Sometimes they are homemade. Sometimes they are from the hardware store. Sometimes they are vaguely decorative and match the curtains. Sometimes they are deeply ugly, but have been in the family so long nobody has the heart to get rid of them.

And look, we are not here to start a fight with your door snake.  If you love it, keep it. Give it a name. Let it have its moment.

But please don’t ask it to do the job of a proper door seal.

That is where things get a bit unfair. A door snake can help with one very specific problem. If cold air is coming directly under the bottom of the door, and the door snake is sitting neatly in exactly the right spot, and nobody opens the door, and the floor is nice and even, and the snake is plump enough to cover the gap, then yes, it can help.

A bit. For a while. Under the door. And that last bit is the problem.

Because most draughty doors are not only draughty underneath.

They are draughty around the sides. Around the top. Around the corners. Around the latch. Around the hinge side. Around those weird little uneven gaps that appear when a house has had a few decades of timber movement, weather, paint, repairs, and general domestic chaos.

The poor door snake cannot do anything about any of that. It is lying at the bottom of the door doing its best, while cold air is sneaking in everywhere else like it has a floor plan.

Bless it.

The Problem Is That Doors Keep Opening

A door snake works best when it is sitting snugly against the bottom of the door.  Unfortunately, doors have one very inconvenient habit.

They open.

Someone comes in. Someone goes out. Someone brings in the shopping. Someone takes the bins out. Someone lets the dog out. The dog immediately regrets the decision and wants to come back in. Someone opens the door to check whether it is still raining, even though the sound on the roof has already provided quite a lot of evidence.

And every time the door opens, the door snake moves.

Sometimes it rolls away. Sometimes it gets pushed to the side. Sometimes it ends up sitting three centimetres from the door, looking decorative but achieving absolutely nothing. Sometimes it gets kicked into a corner, where it joins the school shoes and the shopping bags.

Then the cold air comes back in. Because the door snake only works when it is exactly where it needs to be. Which, in a real house full of real people doing real things, is a surprisingly big ask.

There is a whole winter choreography that develops around it. Open the door. Step over the snake. Close the door. Bend down. Push the snake back. Forget to push the snake back. Notice the draught. Blame someone else. Make tea. Not especially effective.

But blocking is not the same as sealing. Blocking is putting something in front of a gap and hoping the cold air takes the hint. Sealing is actually closing the gap. That difference matters.

A door snake blocks the bottom of the door. A proper door seal seals the door.

That is why people can have a door snake and still feel cold. The snake may be doing something at floor level, but the cold air may not be coming from floor level anymore. It may be coming around the side of the door, where the gap is bigger. It may be coming around the top. It may be coming through the corner where the door does not sit neatly in the frame.

Cold (or hot) air is sneaky. It does not politely line up under the door and wait to be stopped by a sausage.  It finds another way in.  That is called ‘flanking’.  And flanking is how noise enters your home too – along with smoke, pollen, dust and in some cases, leaves! 

The Door Snake Cannot Reach the Sides

If there is a gap down the latch side, the door snake cannot help. If there is daylight around the top corner, the door snake cannot help. If the door rattles in the wind because the perimeter gaps are too large, the door snake cannot help. If the door has dropped slightly on its hinges and the gaps are different all the way around, the door snake cannot help.

It is not being lazy. It just has no arms.

This is why we always come back to the same point. A draughty door needs to be looked at as a whole door. Not just the fluffy bit at the bottom.

Door snakes live on the floor.  That is their natural habitat.  Which means they collect floor things. Dust. Hair. Grit. Mud. Mystery crumbs. Pet fluff. Possibly a spider with strong opinions, or even a real snake, hopefully without attitude. 

If they sit near an external door (the door snake – not a real snake), they can get damp and can start smelling musty. If they are made from fabric and filled with something munchable, they can become interesting to pests.

Then There Is the Tripping Thing

For some people, that is just annoying. For older people, people with limited mobility, children, visitors, or anyone using a walker, wheelchair or pram, it can be more than annoying. It can be a hazard.

This is something we think about a lot, because very early in our draught proofing life we learned that a draught solution is only a good solution if people can still use the door safely and easily.

Many years ago, when we first moved to freezing Gisborne in Victoria, we tried the sticky seal from the hardware store on our own front door. Maurice cleaned the door, applied the seal, stood back, and demonstrated to the family that we had defeated the Antarctic.

The next day, Nanna rang us from home while we were on a building site. “I can’t shut the door!” she lamented.  That was one of our first great draught proofing lessons.

It is not enough to stop the cold. The door still has to work.

The Nanna Test became very real for us. Can the solution stop the draught? And can Nanna still use the door?  If the answer to the second question is no, the first answer is not good enough.

Door snakes can fail that test in a different way. They may not stop the door from closing, but they can become a little obstacle on the floor that everyone has to manage. And in a busy household, that gets old very quickly.

There Are Times When a Door Snake Is Fine

We are not monsters. We are not coming into your house and confiscating your door snake.  There are times when a door snake is perfectly reasonable.

If you are renting and cannot install anything, it may be a useful temporary helper. (But stay tuned for news about Minimum Rental Standards folks – right here!)  If you have a low-use internal door with a small gap underneath, it may take the edge off. If you have a handmade door snake from someone you love, and removing it would cause family tension, let it stay. Peace matters.  The point is not that door snakes are evil. They are not.  They are just limited.

They help at the bottom of the door, when they are in the right position, for as long as they stay there. That is their whole job.

The trouble starts when we expect them to seal a draughty external door properly. That is a much bigger job than a fabric sausage should be expected to handle.

When the Whole Door Needs a Better Plan

If your front door, back door or laundry door is letting in cold air, it is worth looking at the whole door.  Stand near it on a cold day and take your time. Look around the sides. Look across the top. Look at the bottom. Look for daylight. Feel for air movement. Notice whether the door rattles. Notice whether one section has a bigger gap than another.

Most people are surprised when they do this properly.

They start out thinking the problem is under the door, because that is the gap they can see most easily. But then they realise there is air coming around the sides as well. Or the top. Or one corner. Or the gap changes all the way around the door.

That is when the door snake starts to look a little underqualified.

That usually means a proper perimeter seal around the sides and top, and then the right bottom seal for the door, the threshold and the gap.  Is that more involved than dropping a door snake on the floor?  Yes.  Does it work better?  Also yes.

Ready to Help Your Door Snake Retire?

If your door snake is doing its best but your room is still cold, the problem may not be under the door. It may be around the door.

That is where a proper door sealing solution can help. Look at the whole door, not just the bottom. Check where the air is coming in, then choose the right seal for the actual gap.

Your door snake can still have a happy retirement.

Cat pillow. Laundry door assistant. Decorative draught consultant. Whatever feels right.

But if you want to stop the draught properly, it might be time to fix the whole door, not just the fluffy bit at the bottom.

Start here: Choose the Right Solution for Your Draughty Door.

People Also Ask

What’s Next?

We hope this article has helped you understand what your door snake can and cannot do. It may be trying its best, bless it, but sometimes the whole door needs a better plan.

Next, explore Choose the Right Solution for Your Draughty Door.

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If you found this article helpful, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel. You’ll find many more helpful “How To” videos there. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram to stay in the loop. For more great information on how to make your home more energy and thermally efficient subscribe NOW to ecoBites. ecoBites are free bite size chunks of the latest energy efficiency information making it quick and easy for you to absorb.